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UNITED STATE^oFAMERICA. 



SCIENCE 



WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 



BY 



REV. W. N. PENDLETON, DD. 



. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

18 0. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for tlie 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



TO 
THE CHURCHES, 

AND TO 

THE SCIENTIFIC PUBLIC 

in general; 

and in particular to his 

GKATEFULLY REMEMBERED ALMA MATER, 

THE MOST DISTINCTIVELY SCIENTIFIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF 
THE COUNTRY, 

THE U. S. MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT, 

AND TO 
THE MANY ACCOMPLISHED ALUMNI THEREOF, 

HIS ESTEEMED FELLOW GRADUATES, 



is Walumt 



IS RESPECTFULLY AND KINDLY INSCRIBED 
BY THEIR FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



The topics discussed in the following pages may be regarded 
either separately or in their mutual relations. ATith this two- 
fold view, accordingly, the discussions are conducted. Each is 
intended to be complete in itself, and yet to constitute an appro- 
priate part of a larger whole. 

Trusting that he may, in the series, have done something 
toward promoting right convictions on great questions, with 
regard to which science is sometimes represented as at issue 
with Holy Scripture, the author commits it to ITis blessing, 
"without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy." 

Lexington, Virginia, June 1, 1860. 



CONTENTS. 



DISCUSSION I. 

PAGE 
SCIENCE AND REVELATION 9 



DISCUSSION II. 

THE HUMAN FAMILY 62 

DISCUSSION III. 

THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION 145 

DISCUSSION IV. 

THE AGE OF MANKIND 199 

DISCUSSION V. 

THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES 287 



(vii) 



SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 



DISCUSSION I. 

SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 

One of the greatest questions of our age is undoubt- 
edly that respecting the actual relations between Natural 
and Revealed Truth, between Science and Scripture. 

Toward conveying, at the outset, a just impression of 
the bearings of this great question, and of its controlling 
importance at the present time, we shall need no apology 
for quoting from the lamented Hugh Miller the following 
instructive testimony : — 

" Before the churches can be prepared competently to 
deal with the infidelity of an age so largely engaged as 
the present in physical pursuits, they must greatly ex- 
tend their educational walks into the field of physical 
science. The mighty change which has taken place 
during the present century in the direction in which the 
minds of the first order are operating, though indicated 
on the face of the country in characters which cannot be 
mistaken, seems to have too much escaped the notice of 
our theologians. Speculative theology and metaphysics 
are cognate branches of the same science: and when, as 

(9) 



10 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

in the last and the preceding ages, the higher philosophy 
of the world was metaphysical, the churches took ready 
cognizance of the fact, and, in due accordance with the 
requirements of the time, the battle of the evidences was 
fought on metaphysical ground. But, judging from the 
preparations made in their colleges and halls, they do not 
now seem sufficiently aware — though the low thunder of 
every railway, and the snort of every steam-engine, and 
the whistle of the wind amid the wires of every electric 
telegraph, serve to publish the fact — that it is in the 
departments of physics, not of metaphysics, that the greater 
minds of the age are engaged, — that the Lockes, Humes, 
Kants, Berkeleys, Dugald Stewarts, and Thomas Brownes, 
for the most part belong to the past; and that the philoso- 
phers of the present time, tall enough to be seen all the 
world over, are the Humboldts, the Aragos, the Agassizes, 
the Liebigs, the Owens, the Herschels, the Bucklands, and 
the Brewsters. In that educational course through which 
candidates for the ministry pass, in preparation for their 
office, I find every group of great minds which has in turn 
influenced and directed the mind of Europe for the last 
three centuries, represented more or less adequately, save 
the last. It is an epitome of all kinds of learning, with 
the exception of the kind most imperatively required, be- 
cause most in accordance with the genius of the time. 
The restorers of classic literature — the Buchanans and 
Erasmuses — we see represented in our universities by the 
Greek and what are termed the humanity courses; the 
Galileos, Boyles, and Newtons, by the mathematical and 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 11 

natural philosophy courses; and the Lockes, Kants, 
Humes, and Berkeleys, by the metaphysical course. But 
the Cuviers and Huttons, the Cavendishes and Watts, with 
their successors the practical philosophers of the present 
age — men whose achievements in physical science we find 
marked on the surface of the country in characters which 
might be read from the moon — are not adequately repre- 
sented ; — it would be perhaps more correct to say, that they 
are not represented at all ; and the clergy as a class suffer 
themselves to linger far in the rear of an intelligent and 
accomplished laity, a full age behind the requirements of 
the time. Let them not shut their eyes to the danger 
which is obviously coming. The battle of the Evidences 
will have as certainly to be fought on the field of physical 
science as it was contested in the last age in that of meta- 
physics. And on this new arena the combatants will 
have to employ new weapons, which it will be the privilege 
of the challenger to choose. The old, opposed to these, 
would prove but of little avail. In an age of muskets 
and artillery, the bows and arrows of an obsolete school 
of warfare would be found greatly less than sufficient in the 
field of battle, for purposes either of assault or defense." 

That this statement is in the main just cannot be 
doubted, and it certainly indicates a misapprehension, as 
perilous as it is prevalent, in regard to the relation which 
subsists between the lessons of revelation and the teach- 
ings of science. We would do somewhat toward arresting 
this evil and averting the dangers that follow in its train. 
And to this end we here present to notice certain great 



12 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

facts and principles going to show what is really and justly 
the relative position of scientific achievement and of scrip- 
tural teaching. 

Just one hundred years have elapsed since a celebrated 
philosopher of North Britain gave to the world an account 
of certain remarkable researches, by which he had liberated 
from a solid form in limestone, magnesia, and other sub- 
stances, a peculiar gas, entirely different from atmo- 
spheric air. This discovery, altogether due to a steady 
application by Dr. Black, of the Baconian doctrine of 
experiment and observation, may be regarded as the real 
starting-point of modern chemistry. Nay, by the questions 
which it forthwith suggested, and the impulse it gave to the 
sagacious mind of its detector, this fact became the imme- 
diate precursor of another scientific triumph of. unrivaled 
value, by the same great man, — the discovery, that, when 
water passes into steam, a vast amount of heat becomes 
absorbed, and is rendered imperceptible or latent, but that 
it is made again prodigiously effective for warming pur- 
poses, when the steam is recondensed into water. 

This law at once revealed the secret of many a grand 
phenomenon of nature, and placed in human hands the 
control of some of her mightiest powers. Here was seen 
the sceptre of the storm-king, and the subtle energy whereby 
are sent forth hail and snow. Here were disclosed the 
processes of congelation and vaporization, and the pa- 
rentage of rain and dew. And here mankind learned how 
to make the vapor of water the most useful of servants, to 
convey genial warmth through the largest dwellings, to 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 13 

supply healthful baths at all seasons, to minister culinary 
appliances for congregated crowds, and to furnish the arm 
to color or to cleanse, and the breath to dry, all articles of 
human apparel. And more than all, in this same discovery 
was found the key, which Watt was at the very time seek- 
ing, to these improvements in the steam-engine, which 
have made it, this half century, the mightiest agent in man's 
material progress. 

This instance may serve to illustrate the diffusive influ- 
ence and beneficent power of true science. How the accu- 
rate ascertainment of even one great natural law opens to 
the human mind a world of associated truths, and places 
man in a condition to secure, for his well-being, that do- 
minion over the whole lower creation, to which, the sacred 
book tells us, he was at his birth ordained ! 

And it is in this w r ay that science has become so con- 
trolling an element in modern civilization. It is undoubt- 
edly one of the two prime agencies by which civilized man 
is distinguished in these latter ages. It is the grand 
material element of human progress. 

We say science is one of two chief influences by which 
the leading races of mankind are this day actuated. The 
other is, of course, that moral element of culture which 
has been given us in Revelation. It reaches far deeper 
than the material in its bearings on the great interests of 
human life. Farther back lies its power, and incalculably 
more essential is it to the right development and final re- 
generation of our race. 

Witness one instance of its benign operation, exactly 

2 



14 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

coincident in time with Dr. Black's scientific discoveries. 
The very year, now a fraction over a century past, which 
witnessed the promulgation of the earlier of these achieve- 
ments, saw captured, by a French privateer, a sick, be- 
reaved, lonely Christian man, who was crossing the British 
Channel, partly to recruit, in the genial air of Lisbon, 
energies which had become enfeebled in his afflicted Eng- 
lish home. 

The prisoner, in common with many others, was con- 
fined to a loathsome dungeon, and for months subjected to 
treatment the most inhuman. And the experience there 
gained ultimately directed the earnest devotion and un- 
dying sympathies of an obscure servant of Christ, into that 
course of heroic practical charity which has changed the 
whole character of prison discipline in Christendom, and 
which will impart to the name of John Howard the charm 
of sweet music in the ear of a grateful world, so long as 
our earth bears upon its bosom a receptacle for the lawless 
or an asylum for the unfortunate. 

This extract from his recorded meditations may show 
the spirit in which he wrought. "0 my soul! in the 
amiable light of redeeming love, keep close to Him whose 
presence makes the happiness of every place. . . Remember 
thou art a candidate for eternity . . . Lift up thine eyes to 
the Rock of Ages, and then look down on the glory of this 
world. A little while, and thy journey will be ended; be 
thou faithful unto death!' 7 

And the work, in this spirit accomplished by the world- 
renowned philanthropist, was, in the language of another, 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 15 

this: "He saw that in the many-chambered dwelling, 
framed for them by their Father, men could not live to- 
gether and in peace. The roof and spires of that dwelling 
seem to rest in sunshine ; in the higher apartments is the 
voice of mirth and gladness; lower down, the darkness of 
sorrow begins to thicken ; and beneath all, there have ever 
been lightless dungeons, from which, through the whole 
course of human history, have arisen the broken groans of 
agony or the low wailings of despair. By a stern and 
awful necessity, these dungeons were never empty; men 
were compelled to chain down their brethren in the dark- 
ness, lest, like maniacs, they should plunge their knives 
into the hearts that pitied them, or, like fiends, bring on 
all the destruction of Sodom. Never out of the ears of 
humanity could pass the doleful voice of lamentation, cry- 
ing, like the conscience of the race, ' Fallen ! fallen ! fallen V 
Meanwhile, they who had thus flung their fellow-men in fet- 
ters out of their sight, looked down upon them with the fierce 
glare of indignation, as if their chief duty was to load the 
whip and whet the axe. Or they turned from the anguish, 
whose existence they would forget, and deafened the walls 
through which sounds of woe might ascend, and urged on 
the dance, and the laugh, and the song, or listened to the 
chan tings of solemn organs, or the trembling of bridal 
music, unsaddened by any cloud that floated up from 
below. Yet calamity was waxing greater and greater 
there, writing its pale emblems on too many faces ; famine, 
pestilence, torture, and all injustice might enter unseen; 
and groans of agony were going up to heaven, though 



16 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

unheard by man on earth. Into these dungeons of the 
world Howard penetrated, and compelled men to hear the 
voice of agony beneath their feet. The result was a re- 
sponse of pity throughout society, and a resolve among 
civilized men that henceforward the lighted lamp of justice 
should be committed to the kindly hand of love." 

This is but one illustration of that benign energy which 
Christianity exerts upon mankind, a single specimen of 
efficacy in that great moral element of our civilization 
which the Scriptures furnish, and which, reaching to lower 
depths in human necessity than does any scientific dis- 
closure, and bearing upon interests more intimate and 
precious, limits not its benefits, as science ever must, to 
this transitory life, but points onward to that endless ex- 
istence, where purity is unimpaired and knowledge unim- 
peded by the hindrances of earth. 

]STow between these two grand elements of human well- 
being, the material and the moral, so far from there being 
essentially any antagonism, there is a most important rela- 
tion of mutual service, which, as already indicated, is, to 
this day, strangely misunderstood, not only on the infidel 
side, but on the part of Christian people otherwise well 
informed. 

Emanating, as they do, from the all-wise Author of 
nature and reason on the one hand, and of revealed dis- 
closure on the other, it is of course impossible, not only 
that they should really conflict the one with the other, but 
that they should not sustain and enforce each other. The 
works of God explained by a genuine science, and his 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 1*J 

word expounded by a just interpretation, not only cannot 
be at issue, but each, when rightly understood, must both 
harmonize with the other, and exhibit it to human view in 
a light more glorious and worthier its divine origin. 

And yet, plain as is this principle, there is more than 
the depreciative neglect of which the Cromarty philosopher 
gives warning. The attempt indeed is not seldom made 
to array, as if in deadly opposition, these two mightiest 
agents of man's welfare. Ever since the fatal Inquisition, 
actuated by a timid and illiberal distrust, the direct oppo- 
site of that noble freedom with which the Bible challenges 
inquiry, dared to arm itself with the fierce energy of bigot- 
ed delusion, and to torture old Galileo into a repudiation 
of his senses, has something of a like spirit been exhibited 
by not a few, who should have learned a better lesson, 
from that calm, tolerant tone of conscious strength, which 
breathes in every page of the inspired book they profess to 
honor. And injustice so flagrant on the one side could not 
but provoke more than retaliation on the other, until the 
errors of certain of its advocates have, in no small measure, 
subjected religion itself to the sneering reproach of being 
the jealous, unworthy enemy of thorough human cul- 
ture. 

If feebleness on the side of right, and harm to the great 

interests of religion, result from the mere quiescence which 

Hugh Miller justly deprecates, how much more serious the 

mischief to be expected from this actual antagonism, 

founded, as it demonstrably is, in a double mistake ! He 

therefore who can, in any important measure, contribute 

2* 



18 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

toward counteracting the evil, will be so far subserving 
the best interests of mankind. 

It is this conviction which induces us to submit the 
views we are about to present concerning the actual rela- 
tions between the disclosures of the Bible and the progress 
of scientific inquiry. Of the correctness of these views we 
have not the slightest doubt, nor of their tendency to re- 
move prejudices which now hinder alike the material and 
the moral elevation of our species. We would contribute 
our mite toward the harmonious development of that 
wisdom which makes man triumphant over nature, and 
of that which fits him for heaven. So long as the leaders 
in Christian thought remain indifferent to the advances of 
physical research, and the body of Christian people retain 
the idea that scientific investigation tends on the whole to 
skepticism, and so long as the ungodly scientific mind both 
has the field mainly to itself and can avail itself of the 
pretext of persecution to brand religion as the foe of 
science, so long must disparagement and defiance exist 
between these mighty powers. And so long must detri- 
ment accrue to those interests of our race which belong 
only to this world, on the one hand, and on the other to 
those which pertain to a future and eternal existence. 

That there is, in truth, an entire harmony between the 
moral and the material agencies that have been mentioned, 
between the triumphs of Science and the teachings of 
Scripture, nay more, that they are so thoroughly inter- 
twined and blended in their relations to the human mind, 
as to prove their common origin in the Source of all wisdom, 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 19 

it will be our first endeavor to show. Perfectly clear is it to 
our view, that discoveries in the wondrous plan of nature, 
made by rightly-directed inquiry, have aided the human 
faculties to a better understanding of the documents of in- 
spiration, and a firmer grasp of the precious verities they 
disclose. Nor is it less evident to us, that influences 
proceeding from Revelation have opened the way to those 
right methods of investigation which constitute the basis, 
and have resulted in the miracles of modern Science. 

Indeed it must, we think, be to all obvious, on reflection, 
that, addressed as are Natural and Revealed truth, to the 
same creatures, and to faculties in them altogether in- 
separable, reciprocal relations of action and reaction can- 
not but exist in the mental processes by which they are 
respectively realized. Hence may it be conceived how 
Revelation, though embracing in its plan no direct in- 
struction for mankind, in regard to things naturally cog- 
nizable, has, nevertheless, through its influence upon the 
cognitive faculties, incalculably promoted that amazing 
scientific progress which we witness in Christendom, and 
nowhere else. And hence may be understood the service 
which scientific discovery is rendering the interpretation 
and the evidences of the sacred records. 

These views we now proceed to expand and illustrate. 
We shall endeavor to establish the position that mankind 
are largely indebted to influences derived from the Scrip- 
tures for that intellectual revolution in modern Christen- 
dom which has emancipated the mind, as it was never 
liberated before, and which has placed the keys of nature 



20 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

even in the hands of children. And then it will be our 
aim to point out, as only second to this, a debt on the 
other side, to the all- wise Author of nature, for the scien- 
tific methods to which he has adapted the faculties of 
creatures made in his own image. To exhibit the recip- 
rocal influence which Science exerts in correcting inad- 
equate apprehensions of things revealed ; and in placing 
divine truth in a fortress so strong that enemies, however 
inveterate, must forever assail it in vain, and so lofty that 
the celestial light thence emanating shall at length reach 
every eye that will behold. 

We maintain, then, in the first place, that, for that sim- 
ple and humble process of inquiry into facts, and that sys- 
tematic ascertainment and application of natural laws, 
which constitute what we mean by Science in its every 
department, man owes, incalculably more than the mere 
scientific reason supposes, to influences connected with 
Christianity. And in support of the position, we appeal 
to the nature of things, and to the evidence of history. 

That the scientific method of seeking truth is of com- 
paratively recent introduction among men, and was, in fact, 
never dreamed of, save in modern Christendom, is a cir- 
cumstance as significant in the premises as it is in itself 
undeniable. It is generally known to have been inaugu- 
rated less than two and a half centuries ago, as the new 
organ of investigation and discovery, announced by Lord 
Bacon, in his celebrated " Novum Organum," and substan- 
tially contained in the first aphorism of that immortal 
work. "Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 21 

does, and understands, as much as his observations on 
the order of nature, either with respect to things or the 
mind, permit him, and neither knows nor is capable of 
more" 

Now, that this principle, obvious as it appears when 
once established, and the systematic applications of it, 
which constitute the various branches of modern science, 
should have been so long undetected, by human intelli- 
gence, is, of itself, a phenomenon sufficiently remarkable to 
suggest, that there must have been in the nature of man, 
or of the world, or of both, some cause or causes seriously 
interfering with his thus applying his powers to the prob- 
lems of the universe. And a slight attention to certain 
indisputable facts in the general aspect of the material 
world, and in man's own character, suffices, if we mistake 
not, to reveal such causes with convincing certainty. 

There is, for instance, in the vast array of material 
things, a complexity so intricate as thoroughly to baffle 
the conjectures of an uninstructed mind. Particulars so 
infinitely various, and combined in ways apparently so con- 
fused, disorderly, and fortuitous, present, to the uninitiated, 
a scene which cannot but perplex thought, and make in- 
quiry seem hopeless. Nor is it difficult to conceive how 
potent the influence of this seemingly inextricable confu- 
sion in the world must have been toward preventing those 
systematic observations of associated facts, which might 
have conducted the mind to a knowledge of certain gen- 
eral laws, and thence, by a wider induction, to generaliza- 
tions still more extensive, and so on, to an approximate 



22 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

understanding at last, of the grand and beautiful order 
existing under such seeming chaos. The idea of such 
ascertainable system in a universe so infinitely various and 
complex, might well appear, we can readily understand, 
about as reasonable or natural, as to expect to find an 
orderly arrangement in the leaves scattered by autumn 
winds, or to trace a definite meaning in the mazy dance of 
insects on the summer air or on the tremulous bosom of a 
rippling lake. 

It is true that, amid this vast assemblage of seemingly 
disarranged elements, certain obvious instances of order, 
calculated more or less deeply to impress the mind, present 
themselves to notice. But it is soon found that they are, 
for the most part, such as rather increase than diminish 
the perplexity occasioned by nature on the whole. The 
recurrence of day and night, and of the seasons ; the lunar 
phases, and other periodical changes in the heavens ; and 
the great diurnal heavings of the ocean, are of this char- 
acter. Their very grandeur, however, and the immensities 
which they involve, are well calculated, it is plain, not to 
relieve, but the more to embarrass the mind, when an unin- 
structed man turns from them to contemplate the things 
more immediately about him. The intricacy or disorder 
here, seems so out of keeping with the fixedness of system 
there, that it is scarcely possible for thought, under the 
circumstances supposed, of actual ignorance once existing, 
to associate them together as elements of one great plan, 
pervaded by order in every part. 

Where he discerns order, uninformed man finds himself 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 23 

impotent ; and where his energies can act, complexity and 
confusion baffle his understanding. 

Allow, then, all that can by any be claimed for human 
reason, (and for it, under right guidance, much should in- 
deed be allowed; wonderful is it when thus conditioned,) 
and it is still clear, that, apart from all other impediments, 
these very circumstances in the constitution of nature, and 
in man's relation to the world around him, must interpose 
hindrances of the most formidable character, in the way of 
his attaining a method of investigation which may unlock 
for him the secrets of the universe. If, therefore, no other 
adverse influences operated in this direction ; if there were 
no impediment in the original approaches to the paths of 
science, besides the complications of the material world, 
and the limited power of direct penetration which the 
human mind is known to possess, it might be safely 
alleged, that many ages must pass (who shall say how 
many?) before the casual notices of successive generations 
could, if indeed they ever could, furnish a clue whereby 
the remotest approximation might be gained toward the 
entrance of the mighty labyrinth of nature. 

But these are very far from being the only or the most 
formidable difficulties by which access to a true philosophy 
of investigation, on the part of mankind, must, it would 
appear, have been prevented. There are in man himself, 
in the processes of his own constitution, and the elements of 
his character, hindrances in the way to an effectual plan of 
inquiry, which would seem to render its attainment well-nigh 
hopeless. They consist not so much in the feebleness, as in 



24 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the complexity and disordered condition of his faculties. He 
is notoriously a being of fitful, wayward, and impatient will, 
and of turbulent passions, as well as of conscience, affec- 
tion, and vague, but occasionally lofty, aspiration. And 
such is the want of harmony among these elements, that 
his breast is for the most part a scene of wild confusion ; 
nay, of actual warfare, between the moral sense and the 
selfish purpose, the dictates of reason and the promptings 
of appetite, the groveling lust and the aspiration after 
unknown good. But in this warfare, alas ! as the history 
of the race has everywhere shown, the forces of downward 
tendency, where man is left to himself, really enslave and 
hold in bondage those that might otherwise elevate him to 
knowledge and power. 

Such, then, is the condition of the individual mind, and 
considered by itself, without now bringing into view those 
accumulated barriers, which are, as we shall presently show, 
crowded in the way of truth, by the aggregation of such 
minds in society, it is obviously most unpropitious for suc- 
cessfully undertaking a search into the hidden things of 
creation. Energies thus discordant are manifestly un- 
adapted to that calm, patient, protracted, ever-vigilant 
course of systematic observation, which alone could con- 
duct previously uninformed man to a point whence, amid 
hitherto unresolved confusion, he might behold even one of 
those inner bands that connect the wheels of nature's vast 
machinery. 

And there is another characteristic of human intelli- 
gence, somewhat different, which incalculably increases the 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 25 

difficulty, namely, that an understanding so limited must aid 
itself by general notions. It is the necessity of rational 
faculty such as man's, that it must generalize. Under the 
pressure of particulars endlessly accumulated, it sinks over- 
burdened and exhausted. And hence, will it ever seek 
relief in contrivances, however arbitrary or delusive, 
for arrangement and combination, as the arm avails itself 
of lever and pulley, to lift masses beyond its unassisted 
strength. 

Now this generalizing tendency, associated as it is with 
impatience, and other disturbing influences in the mind, 
not only prevents a true, but leads directly to a false phi- 
losophy of investigation. And a false philosophy once 
inaugurated by genius, especially if adapted to the very 
conditions of mind and of nature out of which it arose, 
as almost of necessity it must be, is little likely to be 
rectified merely by advancing time. Rather would it be 
fastened, most probably, on human thought for indefinite 
ages. 

How such delusive system would arise is obvious. Since 
generalizations must be had, and there is neither induce- 
ment in the appearances of nature, nor patience in restless 
human beings, to seek for them by assiduous observations 
on actual phenomena, they are assumed in certain abstract 
conceptions of the mind. And then, arbitrary as are such 
assumptions, and wide of the truth as they may be, they 
become the very engines with which the mind, deluded by 
their imposing show of potency, works, age after age, 



26 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

upon the great problems of nature, very much as a band 
of the ancients might be conceived, battering with huge 
catapult the fortress of Gibraltar, and with about the 
same result, of impotence, failure, and despair. 

Of such assumed generalizations, of the readiness with 
which the mind of the race becomes enslaved by them, and 
yet of their impotency toward opening the treasures of na- 
ture, the celebrated system of Aristotle, w T hich in this con- 
nection w T e may appropriately designate physical logic, and 
which gave law to mind in the civilized world for two thou- 
sand years, is a perpetual monument. And the agreement 
of that system with what our analysis has indicated as the 
natural course of philosophy which man, as he is, unaided, 
would evolve, in such a world as this, strikingly confirms 
the truth of that analysis. 

This is the way in which that greatest genius, perhaps, 
of antiquity, solves the question respecting the immuta- 
bility and incorruptibility of the heavens : 

''Mutation is either generation or corruption. Genera- 
tion and corruption only happen between contraries. The 
motion of contraries is contrary. The celestial motions 
are circular. Circular motions have no contraries. Be- 
cause there can be but three simple motions — to a centre, 
from a centre, round a centre ; and of three things only 
one can be contrary to one ; but motion to a centre is 
manifestly contrary to motion from a centre; therefore 
motion round a centre, that is, circular motion, remains 
without a contrary. Therefore celestial motions have no 
contraries; therefore among celestial things there are no 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 21 

contraries ; therefore the heavens are eternal, immutable, 
and incorruptible." 

In this specimen of a method, the inevitable rise of 
which we have just traced, we see indeed exercised certain 
great capacities of thought, but we see also a vain conceit 
and proud self-confidence, which must only and forever 
delude ignorant creatures in a world whose complexity, 
like the adamantine walls of some grand temple, effect- 
ually hides from view its inner wonders. Into that temple 
there is only one entrance, and over its portals is inscribed, 
in characters never to be effaced, the simple ordinance : 
"Before honor is humility." "Access to the kingdom of 
man, which is founded on the sciences," says Bacon, with 
characteristic felicity, "resembles that to the kingdom of 
heaven, where no admission is conceded except to ch.il- 
dren." 

But if the tendencies of the individual mind, amid intri- 
cacies so perplexing, thus exclude man from the temple of 
truth, how greatly do those tendencies, as they operate 
among masses, multiply hindrances in the way to that inner 
entrance. Here arise interests which sway him, complica- 
tions which encompass, and necessities which control. 
Here have birth endless influences which stimulate passion 
and add inveteracy to prejudice. Here irregular desire 
and impatient will, ambition and rivalry, antagonism and 
malignity, while unchecked by influences which earthly wis- 
dom never furnished, seethe, as dire elements of mischief, 
in the mighty caldron of aggregated humanity. Hence 
usurpation and tyranny, disquietude and contention, rest- 



23 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

lessness and revolution, and the death-struggles of tribes 
and nations, in perpetual round through all the centuries. 

Surely, under such conditions, human intelligence, other- 
wise, as we have seen, sufficiently disturbed, is about as 
likely by its own glimmering to discover the way to wis- 
dom's treasure-house, as the poor mariner in frailest 
wicker-boat, by a feeble rushlight, safely to track the 
dark, tempestuous ocean, lashed to fury by all the winds 
of night. 

Such, then, are the causes, deep seated in the nature of 
things, in the structure of the world, and in man himself, 
which so inveterately prevent the ascertainment of that 
simple process, whereby modern science received being, 
and was sent forth conquering and to conquer. They 
include those " idols of the tribe, of the den, of the market, 
and of the theatre" of which Bacon delineated the mis- 
chiefs: the passions and prejudices common to all men, 
which he calls the " idols of the tribe;" the special evils 
incident to particular minds, which he characterizes as the 
" idols of the den;" the distortions of reason occasioned 
by disorders in society, which he designates the " idols of 
the market;" and the power derived by false principles 
from deceptive show before the multitude, which he de- 
nominates the " idols of the theatre." 

Now, if this be a representation of the case, even ap- 
proximately correct, it must be admitted that any great 
influence coming in to control these tendencies, to awaken 
juster thoughts, to suggest principles of order not before 
apprehended, to allay the strife in man's breast, and to 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 29 

quiet the turmoil of society, to loosen the iron bands of 
unlawful authority, and to whisper in the ear of reason 
hints of a true method of inquiry, could not but tend to 
open the way to the dwelling-place of truth, and assist the 
mind in gaining access thereto. But whence could such 
influence, come? That brilliant speculative philosophy 
nurtured beneath the shadow of the Athenian Pallas, 
peerless acknowledged among achievements of unaided 
intellect, proclaimed, as we have found, with voice that 
may ring through all the ages: "It is not in me." And 
he that will listen, hears ever echoed back this voice, from 
the banks of the Euphrates, the Nile, and the Tiber. It 
comes also to his ear from the frosty wilds where were 
cradled Alaric, Attila, and Clovis, and from the sunny 
clime that cherished the arch-imposter of the Koran. But 
what neither Babylon, Egypt, Attica, Italy, Scythia, nor 
Arabia could furnish, has gone forth from the hills of 
Palestine, to illuminate the world and speak order into 
the chaos of human opinion, to hush the tempest roar of 
passion and bid away invincible prejudice, to exemplify 
right processes of testing truth, and, in throwing open for 
man the kingdom of heaven, to unbar to him also the 
kingdom of nature. 

This, we say, the Bible was adapted to do, ever tended 
to accomplish, and ultimately did achieve. Its very first 
sentence, received as from the Creator of heaven and 
earth, could not fail to carry with it ideas of a plan that 
must awaken inquiry. And then its whole series of provi- 
dence, and prophecy, and law, could not fail, in the end, 

3* 



30 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

fully to confirm such ideas. But if such, suggestions con- 
cerning the universe, indirectly given by its Maker, when 
revealing himself for purposes moral and spiritual, were 
calculated so to arouse the mind and present it with in- 
ducements to seek for order in the Divine works, with what 
inestimable efficacy to the same end are not those wondrous 
doctrines invested, accompanied as they are by vital ener- 
gies, w T hich, in disclosing the great features of God's moral 
government, both humble and elevate the human spirit! 
Those admirable precepts, also, examples and promises, 
which furnish alike the rule and the incentive to all excel- 
lent action, can their ultimate influence be computed, tow r ard 
promoting effective intellectual exertion, by harmonizing 
human breasts and securing peace in an agitated world ? 

But, besides all these ways, in which the Bible, though 
designed for other ends, w r as calculated to dispel a false 
and develop a true philosophy of nature, there is in it one 
other marked characteristic, more immediately operative 
to this end, perhaps, than all the rest. The simple in- 
ductive method of determining truth, is appealed to in all 
its teachings. Significant facts agreeing in their indica- 
tions, are adduced as the standard of a right judgment. 
"The works that I do, they bear witness of me/' was the 
memorable dictum of unerring lips. And this lesson, as 
mighty as it is simple, pervading too, as it does, the whole 
Bible, could not go abroad in the world, especially in con- 
junction with all else that the inspired word discloses, 
without in the end overthrowing the "idols of the tribe," 
"den," "market," and "theatre," emancipating the mind 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 31 

from the chains of delusion and the dungeon of ignorance, 
and putting in its hand the key of an humble but truthful 
philosophy, wherewith to unlock the great palace of nature, 
and give free access to its richly-furnished halls, where the 
sciences wait as handmaids to dispense to mankind refresh- 
ment and comfort. 

And- now, in verification of the argument thus derived 
from the nature of man, of the w T orld, and of the Holy 
Scriptures, we appeal to the great facts embodied in the 
history of our race. And as an appropriate connecting 
link between the a priori proofs already given and the 
evidence from facts presently to be offered, we adduce the 
judgment, indirectly rendered, by one who is certainly not 
prejudiced in favor of our view, and who will be recognized 
as no less reliable for his intelligence than for his fairness 
in the cause. In his statement, it will be seen that we 
have not over-estimated the tendency of such disclosures 
and influences as those contained in the Bible to guide 
aright the human faculties in their relation to nature. 
Humboldt, in his sketch of the intellectual phenomena of 
the world, thus describes the state of the Hebrew and 
Christian mind, as contradistinguished from that exhibited 
among other portions of the human family : 

" It is characteristic of the poetry of the Hebrews, that, 
as a reflex of monotheism, it always embraces the universe 
in its unity, comprising both terrestrial life and the luminous 
realms of space. The Hebrew poet does not depict nature 
as a self-dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, 
but always as in relation and subjection to a higher spiritual 



32 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

power. Nature is to him a work of creation and order, the 
living expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in 
the visible world. Hence the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews, 
from the very nature of its subject, is grand and solemn; 
and when it treats of the earthly condition of mankind, is 
full of sad and pensive longing. Their epic or historical 
narrations are marked by a graceful simplicity, almost 
more unadorned than those of Herodotus, and most true 
to nature ; but their lyrical composition is more adorned, 
and develops a rich and animated conception of the life of 
nature. It might almost be said that one single Psalm 
(104) represents the image of the whole Cosmos . . . We 
are astonished to find in a lyric poem of such limited com- 
pass the whole universe . . . Similar views of the Cosmos 
occur repeatedly in the Psalms, and most fully, perhaps, in 
the ancient, if not ante-Mosaic book of Job. The me- 
teorological processes which take place in the atmosphere, 
the formation and solution of vapor according to the 
changing direction of the wind, the play of its colors, the 
generation of hail and of the rolling thunder, are de- 
scribed with individualizing accuracy ; and many questions 
are propounded which we, in the present state of our phy- 
sical knowledge, may, indeed, be able to express under 
more scientific definitions, but scarcely to answer satis- 
factorily . . . When the feelings died away," continues the 
great Prussian savan, "which had animated classical anti- 
quity, and directed the minds of men rather to a visible 
manifestation of human activity than to a passive contem- 
plation of the external world, a new spirit arose. Chris- 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 33 

tianity gradually diffused itself; and wherever it was 
adopted as the religion of the state, it not only exercised a 
beneficial influence on the condition of the lower classes, 
by inculcating the social freedom of mankind, but also ex- 
panded the views of men in their communion with nature. 
The eye no longer rested on the forms of the Olympic 
gods. The Fathers of the Church, in their rhetorically 
correct, and often poetically imaginative language, now 
taught that the Creator showed himself great in inanimate, 
no less than in animate nature ; and in the wild strife of the 
elements, no less than in the still activity of organic de- 
velopment. It was thus the tendency of the Christian 
mind to prove, from the order of the universe and beauty 
of nature, the greatness and goodness of the Creator ; and 
this tendency to glorify the Deity in his works gave rise 
to a taste for natural observation. And although the 
ancient world is not abruptly separated from the modern, 
modifications in the religious sentiments and tenderest 
social feelings of men, and changes in the special habits 
of those who exercise an influence on the ideas of the mass, 
must give a sudden predominance to that which might pre- 
viously have escaped attention/ 

Incidental as is the testimony here rendered by the 
venerable philosopher of Berlin to the important truth w T e 
are exhibiting, it could scarcely be more striking or more 
significantly to the point had his special object been to 
establish that truth. He finds the Scriptures and their 
great disclosures actually producing, on a scale no less 
than grand, the very effects we have ascribed to them ; 



34 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

placing the human faculties in a new relation to the phe- 
nomena of nature, and starting mankind in a direction sure 
ultimately to lead to a true philosophy and an all-conquer- 
ing science. 

But that the reality of this influence may be more fully 
appreciated, let us glance at some of the decisive facts in 
the history of ancient, middle, and modern ages. 

In the earlier civilizations, Hindoo, Chinese, Chaldee, 
Persian, and Egyptian, not immediately moulded by Divine 
revelation, whatever else may be said of them, it is certain 
that there were no approaches toward the beginning of a 
process which might place the powers of nature in the 
hands of men. In evidence, we adduce that land of tombs 
and pyramids where the native tendencies of humanity 
worked themselves out so soon and so signally. The cal- 
culating and contriving faculties of the mind were, doubt- 
less, exercised by a class in that remarkable country with 
very considerable success; and the more obvious movements 
of the heavenly bodies were noticed more accurately, per- 
haps, than elsewhere. Nor would we by any means under- 
rate -such attainments. As trophies of intellectual vigor, 
they are undoubtedly entitled to respect. And when we 
find Egypt resorted to by such students as Thales and 
Pythagoras, Plato and Archimedes, as a university for all 
the learning then to be acquired, we may readily admit 
that, in the comparative quiet of the Nile valley, men 
must very early have made no despicable progress in cer- 
tain departments of thought and certain exercises of skill. 
Still it is undeniable that, save in the one direction of ab- 






SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 35 

stract mathematics, the world became not one whit the 
wiser. As to awakening a single influence calculated to 
evolve at last a true philosophy of nature, or to suggest to 
mankind a true method of inquiry, it all amounted to ab- 
solutely nothing. Of this, the proof is entirely conclusive, 
even in the single specimen already given from Aristotle 
of preposterous ingenuity and labored nonsense. For that 
philosopher had at command all the lore of Egypt and of 
the East, as well of his own more favored classic land. 

Of Grecian culture, and its relation to physical investi- 
gations, the illustration that has been given may readily 
spare us the necessity of saying much. That culture, ad- 
mirable as it was in the mere aspect of mental power and 
polish, and memorable as will ever be its products of im- 
aginative beauty and speculative genius, furnished not one 
hint that might help humanity to a conquest over nature. 
"While the earth bears upon its bosom intelligent creatures, 
emanations will reach them from "the blind old bard of 
Scio's rocky isle," to delight; from the brilliant intellect 
of the sage of the Academy, to instruct; and to arouse and 
animate, from the fervid glow of that unrivaled orator 

. . "Whose resistless eloquence 
Wielded at will the fierce Democratic, 
Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." 

And so long as calculating faculty finds exercise in the 
essential relations of abstract quantity, the works of Euclid 
and Archimedes, Apollonius and Diophantus, will remain 
the recognized foundation of the mighty structure of mathe- 



36 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

matics. But all this avails nothing in man's actual relation 
to the intricacies of the external world. Nay, so far from 
lighting him through these to the hiding-place of truth, 
such culture, by the very direction in which it set the 
mind, and the false confidence it engendered, hopelessly 
despoiled man of his earthly heritage. The traveler 
gazing upon the clouds misses the diamond that sparkles 
at his feet. And the occupant of a stately hall, charmed 
with its artistic adornment, loses the glorious prospect 
of mountain and streamlet, and all the sweetness of earth 
and sky, that may be spread around in richest profusion. 

And if deficiency so signal as to any sure principle of 
science pervaded all Greek civilization, that latter evolved 
on the banks of the Tiber only served to perpetuate and 
increase the evil. Intense action, personal and public, was 
the very life of Roman progress. Born in strife, cradled 
in armor, and nurtured amid conflicts, the people of Rom- 
ulus took it as their mission to subdue the world. And 
the spirit thence issuing could not but tell alike upon their 
passions and their policy. No retreat was left for patient 
wisdom with her ceaseless researches. Of the immolation 
of truth on the altars of ambition and cruelty by imperial 
Rome, her armies and her amphitheatre tell the sad story. 
"The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors," 
we are informed by the celebrated author of the " Decline 
and Fall," "was composed of no less than thirty formidable 
legionary brigades, and most probably formed a standing 
force of three hundred and seventy-five thousand men." 
And with this gigantic array bloody pastime well accorded. 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 37 

"Here fhe buzz of eager nations ran, 
In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, 
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. 
And wherefore slaughtered? Wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody circus' genial laws." 

Could wisdom find, even under the auspices of a Tully 
and a Pliny, a home where multitudes were thus inces- 
santly 

Butchered to make a Roman holiday ? 

No wonder Gibbon has himself to tell us, that native 
philosophy there had not being. This is his decisive testi- 
mony: "The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno 
and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools, and their systems, 
transmitted with blind deference from one generation of 
disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to 
exercise the powers or enlarge the limits of the human 
mind." And this continued till, as decline progressed, he 
adds more emphatically, "the Roman world was indeed 
peopled by a race of pigmies, when the fierce giants of the 
North broke in and mended the puny breed." 

With the final extinction of the Roman empire of the 
West, about five centuries after the Christian era, and 
when the victorious Northern tribes had become established 
in the countries of Western Europe, came into permanent 
operation those influences which conducted the people 
there settled through the dark and stormy night of the 
middle ages to the dawn of modern civilization. And 
of the agencies thus operating, Christianity undeniably 
occupies the position of supreme control Nay, without 

4 



38 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

its tranquilizing and transforming power, no credulity 
can conceive that from a deluge of barbarism so destructive 
could have emerged a brighter intelligence, and a more 
healthy social system, than the world had ever known. 
Gibbon himself, strangely hateful to him as was the thought 
of a Divine revelation, and restlessly ingenious as he was 
to make occasions for discrediting it, if possible, in the 
eyes of mankind, is obliged to admit this. In his own 
words : — 

"The progress of Christianity has been marked by two 
glorious and decisive victories; over the learned and 
luxurious citizens of the Roman empire, and over the 
warlike barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted 
the Roman empire, and embraced the religion of the 
Romans. This introduced an important change in the 
moral and political condition of the conquerors. They 
received, at the same time, the use of letters, so essential 
to a religion whose doctrines are contained in a sacred 
book; and while they studied the divine truth, their 
minds were insensibly enlarged by the distant view of his- 
tory, of nature, of the arts, and of society. The version 
of the Scriptures into their native tongue, which had 
facilitated their conversion, must excite among their 
clergy some curiosity to read the original text, to under- 
stand the sacred liturgy of the church, and to examine, in 
the writings of the fathers, the chain of ecclesiastical 
tradition. These spiritual gifts were preserved in the 
Greek and Latin languages, which concealed the ines- 
timable monuments of ancient learnino;. The immortal 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 39 

productions of Yirgil, Cicero, and Livy,. which were access- 
ible to the Christian barbarian, maintained silent inter- 
course between the times of Augustus and the reigns of 
Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation of mankind was 
encouraged by the remembrance of a more perfect state ; 
and the flame of science was secretly kept alive to warm 
and enlighten the mature age of the Western world. In 
the most corrupt state of Christianity, the barbarians 
might learn justice from the law and mercy from the Gos- 
pel ; and if the knowledge of their duty was insufficient to 
guide their actions, or to regulate their passions, they were 
sometimes restrained by conscience, and frequently pun- 
ished by remorse. But the direct authority of religion was 
less effectual than the holy communion which united them 
with their Christian brethren in spiritual friendship, and 
gradually produced the similar manners and common juris- 
prudence which have distinguished from the rest of man- 
kind the independent and even hostile nations of modern 
Europe." 

Testimony like this, from one so unfriendly to religion, is 
surely doubly significant. 

Even more decisive is that of a writer scarcely less dis- 
tinguished, but of very different character, whom we shall 
now quote. M. Guizot uses this language : — 

"It was the Christian church, with its institutions, its 
magistrates, its authority, which struggled so vigorously to 
prevent the interior dissolution of the empire, which strug- 
gled against the barbarians, and w T hich, in fact, overcame 
the barbarians. It was this church, I say, that became the 



40 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOB THE BIBLE. 

great connecting link, the principle of civilization, between 
the Roman and barbarian world. Had not the Christian 
church at this time existed, the whole world must have 
fallen a prey to mere brute force/' 

And again, after a wider survey, he proceeds : — 

"The church has exercised a vast and important influ- 
ence upon the moral and intellectual order of Europe, 
upon the notions, sentiments, and manners of society . . . 
Notwithstanding all the evil, all the abuses, which may 
have crept into the church, notwithstanding all the acts of 
tyranny of which she has been guilty, we must still ac- 
knowledge her influence upon the progress and culture of 
the human intellect to have been beneficial; that she has 
assisted in its development rather than its depression, in 
its extension rather than its confinement." 

This is undoubtedly just. So far as she departed from 
the sacred guidance that had been left her in the Scrip- 
tures, the church, beyond question, impaired her influence 
for good. Abuses did thus creep in. Acts of folly and 
tyranny were perpetrated by her in the name of the All- 
wise and All-righteous. But still, the divine truth which 
she held, and in considerable measure promulged, illumin- 
ated and moulded the world with unrivaled power. 

And among other benefits conferred on mankind by rev- 
elation, even as impeded by the errors of the church, and 
tending to that intellectual revolution which liberated mod- 
ern mind, first in the Reformation, and then in the birth of 
Science, may be mentioned the two important facts, that 
all the schools, and nearly all the authorship, of this 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 41 

period, were due to influences derived from the Scriptures. 
In illustration of this remark, the writings and the institu- 
tions of the great Alfred may be referred to. With a 
devout Christian spirit, and a wise executive energy, he 
applied himself efficiently to such measures as might revive 
that learning in England which the incursions of the Danes 
had sadly impaired. And to this end he became both a 
distinguished author and an extensive founder of seats of 
learning. The influences under which he did this, may be 
seen in one of his extant letters, written to the bishop of 
London of his day. "Calling to mind what benefit had 
been derived by all nations from the translation of the 
Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, first into Latin, and then 
into the various modern languages," he concludes, "there- 
fore I think it better that we also translate some books the 
most necessary for all men to know, that we may all know 
them ; and we may do this with God's help very easily, if 
we have peace ; so that all the youth that are now in Eng- 
land, who are freemen, and possess sufficient wealth, may 
for a time apply themselves to no other task." In such a 
spirit he is said to have re-established many of the old 
monastic and episcopal schools, in various parts of the 
kingdom. Asser, his biographer, expressly mentions that 
he founded a seminary for the sons of the nobility, to the 
support of which he devoted no less than an eighth part of 
his whole revenue. And this is believed to have been the 
foundation of the illustrious University of Oxford. 

Under influences very similar, and in nearly the same 
age, were established the schools which, in a few genera- 

4* 



42 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tions, matured into the magnificent Universities of Bologna, 
of Paris, and of Cambridge. And of their effect in pro- 
moting liberal learning in Europe, at the time when the 
enthusiasm of the Crusades gave place to the enthusiasm 
of study which succeeded them, some idea may be formed 
from the fact that, at the beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, " there are said to have been thirty thousand students 
at the University of Oxford, while that of Paris could 
boast the attendance of a still vaster multitude." 

That the Arabian conquerors of Spain, by their peculiar 
manifestation of activity, contributed to the mental im- 
pulse thus received, is not to be denied. And the service 
which they especially rendered to European mathematics, 
by the introduction into the West of the old Eastern 
numerals, should he candidly acknowledged. Still it is to 
be remembered, that the potent element in their incom- 
plete civilization was but a reflex of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian revelations; that their highest culture was really 
derived from sources which the Christian church had pre- 
served ; and that their system, so far from being able to 
infuse vitality into other forms of human society, carried 
in itself the seeds of a sure and early decay. 

Thus was it that Christianity, through many struggles, 
moulded the mind and formed the genius of Europe, in its 
transition age, and prepared the way for that double regen- 
eration which ultimately purified religion and unbarred 
nature. 

To two great men, indeed, it was given to inaugurate 
that revolution. Luther was doubtless, in some sense, the 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 43 

prophet sent for the purification of the church, and Bacon 
was the ordained herald of a true philosophy of investiga- 
tion. But they were both, in fact, only the exponents of 
that intellectual maturity to which, chiefly by the ramified 
influences of His word, the Almighty had providentially 
conducted the European races. And had no " Brother 
Martin" appeared, or "Baron of Yerulam," the same age, 
or one near at hand, would have witnessed a revolt both 
from Rome and from Aristotle, a Protestant church and a 
Novum Organum. 

Wickliffe (1324-1384) had already appeared as the 
morning star of the Reformation ; and Roger Bacon 
(1214-1292) as the pioneer of experimental science. 
And the mere juxtaposition of a few leading names will 
show how that light was diffusing, which on us beams in 
full day from an open Bible and an unvailed universe. 

Copernicus appeared in 1413, and gave publicity to his 
astronomical conclusions in 1543. 

Luther w T as born in 1483, and published his theses in 
1511. 

Kepler lived between 15T1 and 1630. 

Galileo from 1564 to 1642. 

And Bacon's great work appeared in 1620-21. 

Thus we find coexisting in about one century the great 
leaders in the mighty twofold movement of modern mind. 
Some of them breathe the same air and look upon the 
same skies. And not a generation intervenes between the 
first and the last. Surely this simple fact speaks volumes 
as to the common influences which evolved them all ; and 



44 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

exhibits almost to the eye the actual birth of modern sci- 
ence, in the transforming agencies so long exercised by 
revealed truth upon European mind. 

And the principle thus exhibited, we may now see ex- 
panding into wider compass. That branch of the great 
European family, whose whole character has been most 
thoroughly imbued with the lessons of the Bible, takes con- 
spicuously the lead in every department of physical science. 
The scientific labors of other nations have certainly been 
in some instances exceedingly brilliant. The pure and 
mixed mathematics of France must especially be so char- 
acterized. And yet in physics it is undeniable that with 
the exception of here and there a happy thought, as in the 
memorable discovery of Yolta and G-alvani, scarcely more 
has been done elsewhere than extend English researches 
and verify English theories. 

In physiology, the two greatest discoveries ever made 
were by philosophers of the British isle. (See these and 
other facts forcibly urged in an able " Discourse on the 
Baconian Philosophy," by Samuel Tyler, of the Maryland 
bar.) Harvey, the contemporary and friend of Bacon, 
detected the circulation of the blood as early as 1628. 
And Sir Charles Bell, nearer our own times, distinguished 
between the nerves of sensation and those of motion. 
Sydenham laid the foundation of medical science, and 
John Hunter that of comparative anatomy. And Jenner 
evoked that simple but wondrous secret of vaccination, 
which has disarmed the direst disease, perhaps that ever 
afflicted humanity. 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 45 

In chemistry, also, Britons have taken the lead. Dr. 
Black, of Edinburgh, a hundred years ago, as already men- 
tioned, astonished mankind by the discovery of carbonic 
acid gas, and soon after by announcing the mysterious but 
important doctrine of latent heat. And at the beginning 
of the present century, Dalton, of Manchester, explained 
the admirably adjusted law of chemical equivalents. 
Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen gas, Watt and Caven- 
dish, who ascertained the composition of water, and, above 
all, Davy, the unrivaled analyst and founder of agricultural 
chemistry, were all Britons ; as was Grey, who first gener- 
alized electrical phenomena. 

But, far more than all, that land of Bibles and of 
churches gave to the world that wonderful man, the 
enthroned prince of all the philosophers, to whose patient 
and persuasive hand the bright sunbeam yielded the secret 
of the painted bow and of all the sweet colorings of earth ; 
and to whose calm, attentive eye the invisible cords 
revealed themselves which bind together the material 
universe. 

And while such has been the unparalleled progress of 
physical research there, on our side of the Atlantic, under 
similar auspices of Bible Christianity, we behold like 
results, on a scale to attract the attention of mankind. 
Our Franklin has disarmed the clouds. Our Fulton has 
bridged the ocean, and freighted every river. Our Maury 
has fenced the highways of the sea and written finger- 
boards upon the fitful atmosphere. Our Brooke has 
fathomed the great deep, and uncovered the monuments 



46 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

of its ancient dead. And our Morse, skillfully applying 
the electro-magnetic discoveries of our accomplished 
Henry, has taught the earth, with lightning speed, to 
whisper messages from city to city and from continent to 
continent. 

And this is all, directly or indirectly, the fruit of that 
simple, humble, observant philosophy, which, from disor- 
dered faculty in a complex world, could receive no being ; 
to which neither Egypt, nor Greece, nor Rome, and far 
less India or China could give existence, but which, born 
in that sacred land where God spake with men, was nur- 
tured through the ages on the bosom of Christianity. 

Now, what arithmetic can calculate the debt due from 
mankind to the Scriptures of truth for this single service ? 
Take them away; go back through the centuries, and ob- 
literate all records of heaven's glad tidings, leave man 
only to himself and the impenetrable mysteries around 
him ; then see Egypt buried, Greece in ruins, Rome en- 
gulfed in a dark, destructive deluge, and naught remaining 
but the wild roar of angry elements, without one tranquil- 
lizing breath, one ark of refuge, one ray of hope ; and tell 
us where were all our boasted science and successful phi- 
losophy ? Hopelessly gone ! Lost in boundless, irremedi- 
able night ! But not so. He whose ways with man are 
wise and merciful, had sent a messenger that could, with 
silent yet controlling voice, speak to the tempest of human 
passion, "Peace, be still!" had constructed a life-boat that, 
safely riding the surging billows, should bear onward to a 
stable resting-place the hopes of the world ; had provided 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 4? 

a diffusive balm for the healing of the nations ; had issued 
that word, whose first, last, and every utterance is with 
power, "Let there be light I" 

Hence the existence and the character of modern civili- 
zation, the development of true philosophy, the emancipa- 
tion of human intellect, the success of well-directed inves- 
tigation, and the multiplied triumphs of advancing science. 

Then let no delusive pride of intellect mislead the vota- 
ries of scientific progress into irreverent depreciation of 
that venerable volume, whose pregnant hints and signifi- 
cant suggestions contain the germ of all physical discov- 
eries, and whose transforming power has enabled regener- 
ated society to achieve those discoveries, and with them 
comfort and power. 

But science has also,, as we have said, reciprocated the 
service thus received from religion. She has rendered 
honor to the source of her being; to adorn and defend 
which, indeed, she has gathered materials from all the 
recesses of creation. And though in some instances the 
earlier disclosures seemed to threaten discredit rather than 
confirmation to sacred truth, yet in proportion as research 
has been complete in every department of physical inquiry, 
the result has been to elucidate and corroborate, often most 
surprisingly, the records of revelation. 

The first example we adduce is furnished by the science, 
which deals with the most obvious yet most remote of all 
objects of contemplation, and which is perhaps the most 
universally interesting, as it was the earliest considered 
department of human inquiry. It is true that the Scrip- 



48 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tares and Astronomy have not many points of contact, 
whereby agreement or disagreement between them may be 
tested. But they have some. And these furnish very 
striking indications. At first, indeed, through a contracted 
interpretation given by some in authority, to that simple 
and truthful language of appeai*ance, employed in sacred 
as in common narrative, men, " knowing neither the Scrip- 
tures nor the power of God," feared lest Galileo's telescope 
should reveal things in conflict with the Divine Word. 
And that fear was the parent of much wickedness as well 
as of much folly. But as mankind must credit the evidence 
of their senses ; and as the sphere of vision now enlarged 
by the tube of the old Tuscan seer, placed before the eyes 
of men demonstration evident of those celestial motions, 
which reflection had taught Copernicus to embody in the- 
ory, the petty dogmas which ignorance attempted to chain 
upon the Bible had to be given up ; and a more compre- 
hensive view of certain grand indications, which the unri- 
valed Book had always offered to notice, much more than 
\ indicated the superhuman wisdom of the ancient record. 
While the absurd systems, like that a specimen of which 
has been adduced from Aristotle, laboriously constructed by 
speculative genius in early ages, have, with advancing dis- 
covery, been more and more signally exposed, it has been 
found that the Scriptures, on the same subjects, so speak as 
that every additional disclosure in the heavens lends greater 
significancy to their language on the whole. Do they point 
to the glorious luminary of day as the appropriate symbol 
of the Sun of Righteousness ? Forthwith they exhibit 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 49 

this Spiritual Sun as the center around which revolves the 
entire system of Christian truth, and life/and blessedness. 
And are not those great discoveries of Kepler and New- 
ton, which show a mighty array of planets and satellites 
moving forever round the sun, here shadowed forth ? At 
the same time does not the grandeur of order and power 
in this mechanism of worlds, wondrously expand, to human 
appehension, the significance of the spiritual system, and 
glorify Him, who is at once its bond, its light, and its life ? 
Does the Bible propose to men the inquiry, "Knowest 
thou the ordinances of heaven ?" And are there not inti- 
mated in the words, realities of settled order and universal 
law, the fullness of which human faculty, astonishing as 
may be its achievements, can never explore ? And when, 
with magic mirror, the Herschels, Lord Rosse, and kin- 
dred explorers, have read the secrets of the stellar spaces, 
have they not seen written there this very question put to 
old Job ? When they have tracked revolving sun-worlds, 
at distances that figures refuse to tell, and light itself almost 
fails to traverse, and have resolved innumerable patches of 
scattered star-dust and floating star-cloud into myriads of 
sun-systems, regulated by laws which the Calculus of 
Leibnitz, in the hands of Laplace, forever declines to 
reveal, have they not read in that question a still grander 
significance ? And when, by certain way-marks in the sky, 
they have reckoned that incredible motion of nearly half a 
million of miles per day, which is bearing our sun, with 
all his retinue of planets, toward an unknown point in or 
near the constellation Hercules, how or why, save to suggest 

5 



50 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

it as a general result of universal gravitation, wildest conjec- 
ture dares not answer, have they not learned, by a teaching 
never to be forgotten, that after his last achievements in 
the stars, man, as the Bible had told him it should be, 
knows only in part the ordinances of heaven ? But this, 
too, they have learned, just as the sweet Singer of Israel so 
long ago chanted, though peradventure with a sublimity 
of meaning even beyond that which had been caught by 
his enraptured spirit, and a sublimity ever heightening as 
more is known : "The heavens declare the glory of God !" 

Thus does astronomy interpret and establish the Holy 
Scriptures. 

And no less striking, while still more numerous, are the 
explanations and confirmations of the sacred record fur- 
nished by that science which evokes from the bosom of the 
earth her buried secrets. Here, too, rigid and restricted 
system had narrowed to a hand-breadth the mighty mean- 
ing of the grand old documents. And a timid faith, fee- 
ble because fearful, dishonored the very cause it professed 
to serve, by distrusting its ability to stand every test, and 
protecting its trembling belief by embittered denunciation. 
But again, mankind must credit their senses. And the 
history of pre- Adamite ages, found written on the uncov- 
ered rocks, enforced a more candid and comprehensive 
reading of the entire Scriptures ; and then was seen, in all 
the astonishing precision and fullness of its meaning, that 
marvelous series of intimations which the Bible had all 
along given of ante-human cycles of being; and with 
which some of the old fathers had been so deeply im- 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 51 

pressed. Does Moses speak of successive intervals in the 
progress of creation ? It is the most conspicuous fact 
in all geology. Does he describe a certain order of ad- 
vance in organized forms, from "the herb yielding seed 
after its kind," to "the creeping tiling that had life," and 
"the great sea-monsters," and "winged fowl," and from 
these to the "great beasts of the earth," and "cattle 
after his kind," and then lastly to man, the crown and lord 
of all ? Geology, with precision truly wonderful, displays 
altogether the same advance, and in exactly the same 
order. Here are seen characterizing lower formations, 
certain simple botanical species and low animal forms, am- 
plifying upward into the enormous carboniferous flora and 
its accompaniments ; then the huge fish, reptiles, birds, and 
other egg-bearing creatures, during many ages ; next, the 
mighty mastodon, and mammoth and gigantic beasts of 
various kinds, and, lastly, existing flower and fruit-bearing 
plants, and the animal forms associated with man, and 
himself latest and highest of all. Assuredly this corre- 
spondence between the strata of geology and the narrative 
of Genesis is one of the most surprising confirmations con- 
ceivable of the Divine verity of the Mosaic history. 

But again, do the Scriptures, in repeated instances, 
speak so remarkably of the creative ages in the sense of 
worlds, as if there had been a succession of forms given 
at different times to the same world ; and do they variously 
repeat the idea, by grand allusions to an unmeasured anti- 
quity, and a transformed earth? Geology finds those pro- 
digious ages, those extended and recurring periods, and 



52 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

those successive transformations, indelibly recorded in the 
monumental rocks. And more instructively still, if possi- 
ble. Does the Bible continually exhibit those interposi- 
tions of immediate agency, on the part of the Almighty, 
which modify the general course of natural laws, and 
which we designate Providence ; nay, does it, in fact, con- 
sist of a history of such interpositions in regard to man- 
kind ? And what more conclusive illustration of special 
agency, precisely similar in principle, can be imagined, 
than the fossil history furnishes ? Here is seen occurring, 
again and again, what no general laws have ever produced. 
A whole universe of living creatures disappear, buried 
beneath the sands of the seas in which they have sported, 
or the ruins of the hills on which they have roamed ; and 
races appear, not only unlike, and of altogether different 
species, but absolutely opposite in almost every attribute of 
being. How is this ? There is, certainly, by natural law, 
no transformation of species. It can only occur by imme- 
diate creative power. If physiological research has settled 
any point beyond controversy, it is, that such are the uni- 
versal laws of vegetable and animal life, that no one dis- 
tinct species can ever, by mere natural agencies, be trans- 
muted into another. As well might the earth be expected, 
merely by the operation of gravity and other like proper- 
ties, to clothe itself with a resplendent ether, and send 
forth controlling powers of light and life upon a new sys- 
tem of worlds, as that from the ruins of primeval ferns 
should have sprung our forest oaks; our eagle, soaring to 
the sun, from the insect that sipped some humble flower in 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 53 

the early world; or man, with all his faculties, from some 
groveling reptile of a past existence. These changes, then, 
revealed by geology, these destructions and reproductions, 
these burials of old, and creations of new races, exhibit in 
a light which science fully recognizes, that very direct 
agency of God in the government of the world, the history 
of which, in its relation to mankind, constitutes the great 
burden of Scripture. So that, never has the human mind 
been called to contemplate a more signal confirmation of 
truth than is furnished to the Scriptures by the accumula- 
ting developments of geology. 

So, again, is it in the department of meteorology. Lieut. 
Maury, after all that research has disclosed concerning the 
phenomena of the atmosphere, sums up his conclusions in 
these emphatic words : " The Bible tells it all in a single 
sentence ! • The wind goeth toward the South and turneth 
about unto the North : it whirleth about continually ; and 
the wind returneth again according to his circuits.' " 

Nor are such testimonials rendered alone by the sciences 
separately. There are surprising relations between dif- 
ferent branches of science, which no less strikingly eluci- 
date and corroborate the Bible. For instance, all readers 
have remarked how very characteristic are certain repeti- 
tions of numbers, in the Scriptures, as 7, 10, 12, 40, etc. 
And there have not been wanting those who were ready to 
regard this feature of the sacred books as a sure mark of 
human contrivance in the narrative. But many sciences 
at once appear, bearing concordant testimony to the ex- 
istence of a numerical adjustment, precisely similar, in the 

5* 



54 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

heavens, in the earth, and among all creatures. In the 
planetary motions, Kepler's third law has long since an- 
nounced a double multiplication of times in constant pro- 
portion to a triple multiplication of distances. In botany 
it is found that the leaf appendages of all plants are 
arranged according to the numerical series, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 
etc., in which any two consecutive numbers, added to- 
gether, make the next succeeding. And in physiology it 
is ascertained that 10 marks the digits of all creatures 
with hands or divided feet, and T, the number of bones in 
the neck of all mammalian vertebrata, whether whale or 
giraffe, elephant or human subject. Chemistry tells us 
that there is not a breath of air that trembles in the great 
atmospheric ocean, nor a drop of spray that sparkles on 
the briny deep, nor a panicle of any compound substance 
on the globe, which is not constituted according to a defi- 
nite law of numbers. And optics assures us that there is 
a like numerical constancy in the colors of heaven's beau- 
teous bow. Thus has general science, to such inquirers 
as Kepler and Xewton, and Cuvier and Dalton, and De 
Candolle, revealed, as pervading all nature, a numerical 
system precisely analogous to that which constitutes so 
remarkable a feature of the Bible. And such principles of 
co-ordination in the word and works of God, we can 
readily perceive to be admirably adapted to the constitu- 
tion of man's mind. It is an arrangement in each case 
exactly suited to finite intelligence. It lends distinctness 
to the association of facts; it helps the intellect to grasp 
truth, and the memory to retain it. It strikes the fancy 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 55 

of youth, interests the mature mind, and so wraps salutary 
recollections around the decaying faculties of age as to 
lighten its burdens and irradiate its gloom. 

One other instance we adduce, of peculiar correspondence 
between the teachings of Scripture and the conclusions of 
general science. The inspired history, as is familiar to all, 
affirms that " God made of one blood all nations that dwell 
on the face of the earth;" that however now diverse in 
feature, color, and other subordinate characteristics, and 
of speech, how various soever the human tribes that 
people the globe, they all constitute but one family, de- 
scended from a common ancestry. This, scientific research 
in its earlier and partial stage seemed to discredit, by the 
apparently radical and irreconcilable differences of structure, 
capacity, and language, between extreme races, which it ex- 
hibited. Nor were there wanting those who eagerly seized, 
as some indeed still do, such indications, as a pretext for 
indulging a relentless enmity against the moral system of 
revelation. But just in proportion as investigation has 
been complete in every branch of inquiry bearing upon the 
question of national or tribal origin, as the whole range of 
ethnology has become really scientific, its testimony has 
proved thoroughly corroborative of the Scripture doctrine. 
It is a wide field, embracing in its scope applications of 
almost every branch of human knowledge. But ably has 
it been explored. Nor is there left a shadow of doubt, as 
to the truth, on the minds of the first men of the world, 
in every department of the investigation. Comparative 
anatomy and physiology through their great high-priests, 



56 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Cuvier and Owen, have spoken with oracular voice, "Man 
is one. 7 ' Travel, custom, and minutely verified archaeology, 
as traced by the admirable Prichard, have delivered the 
same declaration. And monumental history has, with 
response precisely accordant, replied to the interrogatives 
of the Humboldts and Lepsius, Bunsen, Schoolcraft, and 
Gallatin. 

And particularly striking is the evidence furnished by 
that branch of monumental history which is contained in 
language. The scientific methods by which this has been 
elicited, first suggested by the sagacious mind of Leibnitz, 
have, within our generation, been pursued with an enthu- 
siasm and success second to that exhibited in no other 
pursuit. It has been but a few years since a Russian 
grammarian, the heroic Castren, (see seq. Human 
Family, p. 81,) although in delicate health, left his study, 
traveled for months alone in his sledge through the snowy 
deserts of Siberia, coasted along the borders of the Polar 
Sea, lived whole winters in caves of ice, or in the smoky 
huts of greasy Samoieds, then braved the sand-clouds of 
Mongolia, passed the Baikal, and returned homeward by 
the frontiers of China ; that he might, in so vast a sweep, 
gather materials for the expanding science of comparative 
philology. From such an instance, we at once perceive 
with what zeal this branch of knowledge has been recently 
pursued. And the result is thus glowingly sketched by a 
distinguished German scholar: — 

"If, now, we gaze from our native shores over that vast 
ocean of human speech, with its waves rolling on from 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 51 

continent to continent, rising under the fresh breezes of the 
morning of history, and slowly heaving in our own more 
sultry atmosphere, with sails gliding over its surface, and 
many an oar plowing through its surf, and the flags of 
all nations waving joyously together ; with its rocks and 
wrecks, its storms and battles ; yet reflecting serenely all 
that is beneath, and above, and around it; if we gaze, 
and hearken to the strange sounds rushing past our ears 
in unbroken strains, it seems no longer a wild tumult, or 
'avyptO/iov yila<?fia } but we feel as if placed within some 
ancient cathedral listening to a chorus of innumerabl*e 
voices, and the more intensely we listen, the more all dis- 
cords melt away into higher harmonies, till at last we hear 
but one majestic trichord or a mighty unison, as at the end 
of a sacred symphony. — Such visions will float through the 
study of the grammarian, and in the midst of toilsome 
researches his heart will suddenly beat, as he feels the con- 
viction growing upon him, that men are brethren in the 
simplest sense of the word, the children of the same father, 
whatever their country, their color, their language, or their 
faith." 

This, from Professor Miiller, is the latest utterance of 
linguistic science. 

Thus it is that the heavens and the earth, the atmosphere 
and the ocean, and all the processes of life, and all the 
monuments of history, return, in answer to the calm, saga- 
cious, impartial cross-questionings of scientific inquiry, one 
clear, full, harmonious, decisive testimony to the truth, 
grandeur, and preciousness of Divine revelation. 



58 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

But this is not the only tribute received by religion from 
advancing science. It is the untiring scribe, with magic 
ringer, to copy for all the tribes of earth, in their several 
tongues, the messages sent them by their Maker. And it is 
the dauntless colporteur, of swift foot and unflagging 
energy, to bear those recorded messages to every isle of 
the ocean and every land of the globe. 

Such, then, are the relations which the Scriptures and 
Science sustain toward each other and to the welfare of 
mankind. The one is the mighty moral, the other the 
great material element of human progress. The one is 
primary and essential, the other subordinate, but greatly 
subsidiary. The one, though mainly designed as man's 
guide to a higher and more blessed existence, has, by 
direct suggestion, and by a regulating influence over dis- 
ordered faculties, placed reason in a position to grapple 
with the problems of the world. The other, in solving 
those problems, has not only evoked from Nature's trea- 
sure-house, and placed in human hands, vastest appliances 
for efficiency and enjoyment, but has brought from every 
corner of creation lights to illuminate the sacred pages, 
voices to swell the chorus of praise to their Divine Author, 
and hands to bear to the remotest habitation of our planet 
the venerable records of revelation. By the one, is opened 
the way to spiritual, by the other, to natural good. That 
tells us of our unseen but gracious Father in heaven, and 
of a future glorious home with Him. This shows us 
tokens of His greatness and goodness, in the wondrous 
structure of our probationary dwelling-place. Upon the 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 59 

dark mystery of mortality the revealed Word sheds a 
blessed light. In tones of authority it bids into submis- 
sion wayward and unhallowed passion. It whispers peace 
to the troubled breast, and on the anxious, trembling spirit, 
binds the wings of eternal hope. It takes the soul into the 
very presence of that " Friend who sticketh closer than a 
brother," and kindles in the heart that flame of love which 
is earth's sweetest blessing and heaven's highest bliss. To 
our children it gives the first, best, and grandest lessons, 
while over all domestic joy it casts a sacred shield. It 
secures our sabbath rest, and charges with sweet music 
every breeze that wafts the sound of the "church-going 
bell." Of all wholesome law it is the strength, and of all 
social order the guardian. It is the pledge of gladness in 
the bridal scene, and at the bedside of death the only 
voice of comfort. It sweetens all existence, and surrounds 
even the grave with bright visions of faith. Unhappy the 
people, and most wretched the man, to whom the Divine 
word is not thus wisdom and life ! But without the 
triumphs of Science, too, 'there is amazing loss. By these 
are opened the portals of nature's mighty temple, and men 
behold there mirrored forth the glory of their Maker. By 
these fire and air, earth and sky, winds and waves, with 
energies exhaustless, are made willing servants to human 
creatures. By these we have victory over darkness and 
distance, over Arctic frost and tropical drought, and over 
sterile soils and unpropitious seasons. These minister to 
the hungry, food; covering to the unclothed; and to the 
houseless, shelter. Here heart and intellect may find ex- 



GO SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

ercise in a boundless field, and heroic enterprise can gather 
richest rewards. Here wealth immeasurable is poured into 
the lap of civilization, and the church finds multiplied 
without limit the means of fulfilling her Lord's last com- 
mand to " preach the gospel to every creature." 

And since this is the real truth of the case between 
Science and Religion, since they actually sustain relations so 
significant toward each other and toward Heaven's benign 
purposes for mankind, we may certainly conclude, in the 
language of so sound a thinker and so forcible a writer as 
Dr. McCosh, that — 

"It is, assuredly, no useless or profane work that is 
engaged in by those who would, with proper humility, 
endeavor to remove jealousies between parties whom God 
hath joined together, and whom no man is at liberty to 
put asunder. . . . We are not lowering the dignity of science 
when we command it to do, what all the objects it looks at 
and admires do, when we command it to worship God. 
Nor are we detracting from the honor which is due to 
religion when we press it to take science into its service. . . . 
Let not science and religion be reckoned as opposing 
citadels, frowning defiance upon each other, and their 
troops brandishing their armor in hostile attitude. Each 
has its own foundation. These let them unite, and the 
basis will be broader, and they will be two compartments 
of one grand fabric reared to the glory of God. Let the 
one be the outer and the other the inner court. In the 
one let all look, and admire, and adore ; and in the other 
let those who have faith kneel, and pray, and praise. Let 



SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 61 

the one be the sanctuary where human learning may pre- 
sent its richest incense as an offering to God; and the 
other the holiest of all, separated from it by a vail now 
rent in twain, and in which, on a blood-sprinkled mercy- 
seat, we pour out the love of a reconciled heart, and hear 
the oracles of the living God." 



DISCUSSION II. 

THE HUMAN FAMILY. 

The scientific determination of an actual family relation- 
ship among all varieties of human beings, has been briefly 
stated in the foregoing essay. On a subject, however, of 
such importance, an additional discussion, simple and yet 
full, clear but condensed, may be useful. Especially in 
view of the strenuous claims in behalf of the diversity 
theory, put forth before the American, and particularly 
the Southern public, within the last few years, and urged 
with triumphant confidence, alike in winged pamphlet and 
ponderous quarto, under cover of an immense parade 
of boasted science ; and recently sanctioned, though with 
apologetic caution, by at least one of the writers admitted 
to the dignified associations of the " Smithsonian Contri- 
butions to Knowledge." (See vol. viii. pp. 1, 105, 159.) 

In the present essay, therefore, we propose to investigate 
with some thoroughness the issue thus presented ; to ex- 
amine the subject in several aspects ; and to indicate the 
general considerations and the special scientific processes 
by which such great master-models of vast and accurate 
research as the Humboldts, Prichard, Chevalier Biinsen, 
and Professors Lepsius and Owen, have been brought to 
the conclusion, fully agreeing with the established senti- 
ment of Christendom, that men, under all varieties, are 
(62) 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 63 

but of one stock; that the human race is, in fact, one 
family from a common ancestry. 

The alternative to this doctrine, proclaimed in the recent 
publications referred to, is sufficiently distinct. Their 
authors contend that "men were created in nations, and 
not in a single pair." (Types of Mankind, p. 82.) That 
they have no common original nature, no essentially agree- 
ing rational constitution, and no comprehensively designed 
merciful arrangement for their general improvement in the 
present life and for their joint participation of a higher 
future existence. That some are absolutely, and uncon- 
ditionally, "inferior," and not only "born to be ruled," 
but " destined to live and prosper," merely, "till a superior 
destroying race shall come to exterminate and supplant 
them, and that no philanthropy, no legislation, no mission- 
ary labors, can change this law." (pp. T9, etc.) 

That these sentiments are seriously in conflict with the 
admirable moral tone of the Scriptures, the equitable spirit 
of modern civilization, and the benign energy of Christian 
heroism, need scarcely be suggested. And it must be 
acknowledged that if scientific processes, fairly conducted, 
do really, in this instance and in this manner, utterly break 
up the moral fabric which the wisdom of ages has sanctioned, 
and put a final extinguisher upon the best motives and 
highest hopes of humanity, it is not only a "new thing 
under the sun," but a most strange and portentous 
anomaly in the course of human experience. 

For this controlling reason, then, at the outset, we are 
constrained to distrust the conclusions now referred to, as 



64 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

unsound, and the methods by which they are reached as 
not genuinely scientific. And here we are reminded of 
what, with his accustomed felicity, a distinguished author 
characterizes as a species of superstition attached to the 
notion of science, as if it were an indescribable magical 
something, different in itself from accurate and classified 
knowledge systematically deduced from unquestionable 
principles and established facts. A moderate acquaint- 
ance with the habitual tendencies of the superficial, though 
so-called scientific speculation of the day, may satisfy any 
mind of the justness of this profound remark. 

Science, it should be remembered, is a very humble as 
well as calm and patient laborer; whether with Newton 
gathering pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of truth, 
or with Bacon seeking admission to the kingdom of nature, 
as it is said a higher kingdom must be sought, with the 
docile spirit of a simple-hearted child. When, therefore, 
we find large claims proudly put forth in the name of 
science, tending to revolutionize the practical moral con- 
victions of mankind, and to annihilate the benignant sym- 
pathies and actuating motives of humanity, the very incon- 
gruity of the procedure brings it at once into suspicion as 
erroneous and unreliable. 

In addition to this general consideration requiring the 
most serious questioning of the proposed theory, we have 
a further special but kindred reason, in its bearing upon 
our peculiar Southern institution, for meeting it with dis- 
trust and subjecting it to unconfiding scrutiny. 

The sacred code which guides the conscience of Chris- 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. C5 

tendom, and which is, beyond question, incomparably the 
surest directory to duty, in all human relations, is at once 
our authoritative reply to all misguided assailants of our 
position as providentially in charge of a form of servitude 
every way remarkable, and our acknowledged standard of 
the obligations connected with that position. And so long 
as we abide by the sanctions of this code, whatever de- 
luded enthusiasts and corrupt agitators may pretend, we 
have with us not only the decisive voice of constitutional 
law, but the undisturbing acquiescence, if not the full ap- 
proval, of the enlightened Christian mind throughout the 
world. Right-minded people may indeed believe that the 
golden Christian rule tends toward the abatement of as- 
perity and the remedying of oppression in all human rela- 
tions, and cherish the pleasing hope that as the spirit of 
Christianity more and more prevails, equity and kindness 
will more and more ameliorate, everywhere, the condition 
of the more burdened portions of society. But they can- 
not on any scriptural ground believe in a wild theory of ab- 
solute personal equality, destructive of social order, and 
rushing headlong into universal anarchy. Nor, despite 
the fervid declamation and fiery denunciation so much in- 
dulged within the last half century, can they believe that 
the Creator sanctioned sin, when he legislated for slaves, 
in old Abraham's house, and under the Jewish common- 
wealth. (See Genesis, xvii. 12; Exodus, xxi. 21, etc.) 
And when he caused to be recorded in the New Testament 
such reiterated injunctions to masters to treat their slaves 
considerately and kindlv and to servants religiously to 

G* 



68 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

obey, even under the severest species of bondage. (See 
Eph. vi. 5; Col. iii. 22; 1 Tim. vi. 1; Titus, ii. 9; 1 Peter, 
ii. 18, etc. 

It is a striking and instructive fact that the fierce 
assailants of the South, and its institution so peculiar 
and so effective in elevating the negro race, should have 
found it necessary to direct their batteries against the 
Sacred Scriptures, either in the way of insane transcen- 
dentalism, with one class of contestants, or of "higher- 
law" atheism and "irrepressible-conflict" instigation, with 
another, or of atrocious blasphemy, with a third, or with 
perhaps a still more numerous assemblage, of pious seuti- 
mentalism conjoined with applauded falsehood, treason, 
and murder. 

Thoroughly satisfied, as we are, by the intrinsic and ex- 
trinsic evidences attending the sacred code — evidences 
profoundly reverenced by the giant intellects of Bacon, 
Xewton, Milton, and Locke, and unhesitatingly admitted 
by the common sense of the leading portion of mankind — 
that the sanctions of that code rest on an immovable basis 
of truth, we cannot deem it right or wise or becoming, 
and we cannot consent, that the defenses of our posi- 
tion be transferred from this foundation of rock to the 
shifting quicksands of less than doubtful theories. It is in 
our view wholly untrue, and we will not even tacitly allow 
ignorance and prejudice the moral advantage of represent- 
ing, that Southern servants are held only as a higher race 
of ourangs, not really contemplated in the authoritative 
precepts on which the morality of Christendom is founded. 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 67 

The question, then, as presented, is one which does not 
admit of indifference, on account of its obvious bearing 
upon our special position as Southerners, as well as upon 
the moral and higher relations of men everywhere. 

At the same time, however, it is very far from necessary 
to mingle in its treatment passion and prejudice. Indeed, 
under various conditions has it been again and again exam- 
ined by naturalists, with entire dispassionateness, as a gen- 
eral matter of scientific interest; and although, in the 
progress and result of these inquiries, "we observe," as 
remarked by Dr. Morton, (Crania Americana, p. 2,) " that 
diversity of opinion which is so frequent in human re- 
searches," yet has the investigation been, for the most part, 
conducted as a fair search after truth, — Yirez supposing 
he had ascertained two species, Desmoulins eleven, Borey 
thirteen, and others a still greater number of original 
kinds, among men ; while Linnaeus, Blumenbach, Cuvier, 
and other distinguished students of nature became settled 
in the conviction of a strict unity in the human family. 

Among investigators in this department of research, the 
celebrated Dr. James Cowles Prichard stands unrivaled as 
a model of freedom and fairness of mind, associated with 
virtuous reverence for everything good, cautious examina- 
tion conjoined with discriminating sagacity, and the most 
amazing accumulation of intelligence covering the whole 
field of inquiry. Setting out with full confidence in the 
great principle, that " truth can never be found ultimately 
in opposition to truth," he devoted the energies of a sound 
mind, sustained erudition, and the persistent endeavors 



68 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

of a long life, to exploring the wide range of fact in all 
branches of knowledge affecting his ultimate problem, phy- 
sical, physiological, psychological, historical, and philologi- 
cal ; and after the most copious induction of this kind, un- 
der the requirements of an inexorable logic, he was brought 
to a result thus announced in the closing words of his last 
work: " We are entitled to draw confidently the conclusion, 
that all human races are of one species and one family." 

"Prichard," says Biinsen, "will not be forgotten in the 
annals of history. His works contain the best and clear- 
est discussion of all the elements of natural philosophy 
which bear upon the great question of the unity of the 
human race. His ethnological inquiry is conducted on the 
basis of a clear geographical and ethnological exposition, 
in which the critical reforms introduced by Hitter, Klap- 
roth, and others, are adopted with independent judgment. 
In the linguistic portion he availed himself, generally, of 
the most thorough critical researches, and made use of the 
best materials which continental and English glossaries 
and observations offered to him. He had sound knowl- 
edge of Greek, Latin, German, etc., and good taste in 
selecting and naming his authorities. But his great merit 
is his excellent good sense and sound judgment. ... As it 
stands, his work is the best of its kind. ... Up to the 
present moment, (1854,) there is no book which treats the 
question with equal depth and candor." 

These characteristics of Prichard's mind, method, and 
conclusions, we wish to be particularly marked: his "ex- 
cellent good sense, and sound, independent judgment;" 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 69 

his care to collect the most abundant "observations," and 
avail himself of "the most thorough critical researches;" 
his substantial "knowledge," the "depth" of his convic- 
tions," the "clearness" of his thoughts, and, above all, the 
"candor" of his spirit. 

It is in association with precisely this style of character, 
this order of mind, and this reliable application of the in- 
ductive philosophy, that genuine scientific results are to be 
looked for in the future, as they have been displayed in the 
past. 

And it is with unfeigned regret that we find ourselves 
constrained to remark upon the characteristics, so opposite 
to these, of certain industriously circulated and insidiously 
indorsed (see Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 
viii. p. 81,) publications of the last year or two, which, 
especially as the production in part of Southern talent, 
we had very much rather find worthy of unqualified com- 
mendation. In these, for the most part, there are not 
only blemishes of the most serious nature, but improprie- 
ties of tone and purpose so marked and so extensive as un- 
avoidably to weaken, if not actually to neutralize, their 
claims to scientific authority. • Prejudice and passion are 
stamped too conspicuously on their pages to be overlooked 
by the most casual observer; and it must always be in vain 
for the noble triumphs of science to be claimed by authors 
who exhibit such tokens of disturbed or clouded reason. 
In proof that we censure thus not unadvisedly, and that 
the cause of truth requires these traits to be understood, 
we adduce a few specimens. 



*T0 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

One of these writers, Dr. Patterson, in his memoir of 
the distinguished naturalist, Dr. Morton, thus mingles in- 
tense feeling with philosophical discussion ; alluding to an 
instance of violence by one of the Western tribes, in which 
a valuable life was lost, he says : " We have had too much 
of sentimentalism about the red man. It is time that cant 
was stopped now. Not all the cinnamon-colored vermin 
west of the Mississippi are worth one drop of that noble 
heart's blood." Here is stereotyped passion in the terms 
"cant" and "vermin." 

In like manner, and in reference to a higher subject, an- 
other, Dr. ]S T ott, gives vent to a spirit of no little bitter- 
ness: "On former occasions we had attempted to con- 
ciliate sectarians, and to reconcile the plain teachings of 
science with theological prejudices. In return, our opin- 
ions and motives have been misrepresented and vilified by 
self-constituted teachers of the Christian religion. We 
have, in consequence, now done with all this ; and have no 
longer any apologies to offer, nor favors of lenient criticism 
to ask. The broad banner of science is herein nailed to 
the mast. Even in our own brief day, we have beheld one 
flimsy religious dogma after another consigned to oblivion, 
while science, on the other hand, has been gaining strength 
and majesty with time." 

Abusive epithets are here accumulated with an angry 
energy that almost pants in its eagerness. "Sectarians," 
"theological prejudices," "vilified," "apologies," "fa- 
vors," "flimsy religious dogmas," bespeak an excitement 
of mind manifestly inconsistent with the self-possession of 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. Tl 

reason, the composure of philosophy, and the dignity of 
science. A calm, clear intellect, assuredly is indispensable 
to trustworthy scientific investigation. And though we 
may not absolutely hold that your true philosopher is 

" A man whose blood 
Is very snow-broth ; one who never feels 
The wanton stings and motions of the sense, 
But doth rebate, and blunt his natural edge 
With profits of the mind, study, and fast;" 

yet must he be in general, and doubly in reference to great 
questions he professes to elucidate, 

"Free from gross passion. " 

Another individual, less distinguished but more notorious 
than the writers already quoted, makes arrogant mockery, 
profane jesting, and boastful denunciation the chief staple 
of his contributions to ethnology, as if they were legiti- 
mate adjuncts of scientific inquiry. And he has actually 
had the fatuity to stamp upon his own pages with his own 
hand the brand of a revengeful and belligerent temper. 
"It has so happened," says Mr. Gliddon, on the last page 
of his book, "that my surname has been frequently made 
the target for indiscreet allusions on the part of certain 
theologastii, without any provocation having been given 
on my side, through a single personality, in the course of 
ten years' lectureship upon Oriental Archaeology in the 
United States. To treat such in any other manner than 
with silent indifference, would have been unbecoming, as 
well as at the moment of each offense unavailing. I pre- 
ferred my own convenience, and in the foregoing pages I 



12 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TEE BIBLE. 

have indicated an easy way of ' carrying the war into 
Africa.'" Whatever may be said of this in other aspects, 
no one can question that it indicates a most unreliable state 
of micd for a man who professes to deal scientifically and 
destructively with the most important verities embraced in 
the range of human intelligence. 

Nor are these the only prima facie reasons for distrusting 
the processes and conclusions of the class of works under 
consideration. In them all there is implied, and in some 
avowed, discipleship of the phenomenal atheistic philoso- 
phy of Comte, known as positivism. And this necessarily 
throws the theory of " creation in nations" into the cate- 
gory of Lamarck's development hypothesis, and the specu- 
lations of the "Yestiges of Creation." Since it is clear, 
that, if no Creator is acknowledged, there can be no 
" creation" meant in any true sense. And the notion, after 
all, involved in the scheme really is, that in some inexpli- 
cable, inconceivable way, men merely appeared in nations, 
without having been created at all. They only happened 
— without a true causation — or waked up from sleeping 
stocks, unaccountably animated, or grew out of ourangs, 
which had grown out of frogs, which had been developed 
from eternal monads under the blind decrees of a Dead 
Fate. 

The issue of the theory — that every region had originally 
its tribal autochthons — in some such absurdity as this, 
might, indeed, have been inferred from the consideration 
that such theory is directly in conflict with the relations of 
means and ends involved in any economy of creation and 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. ^3 

providence. It being well-nigh incredible that a presiding 
intelligence would, in the act of endowing an order of 
creatures with energies and impulses adapted to endless 
self-multiplication, produce them in countless numbers. 

But though the Lamarckian hypothesis might thus have 
been inferred as involved in the indefinite autochthon the- 
ory, it is the avowal of atheism under the guise of Comte's 
phenomenal scheme, which converts that inference into 
something of an acknowledged conclusion. 

A conclusion, however, so universally rejected by the 
common sense of mankind, as well as thoroughly refuted 
by the demonstrations of logic and the proofs of science, 
(see the admirable discussions in Sir Charles LyelPs Ele- 
ments of Geology, and in Hugh Miller's Footprints of the 
Creator,) is not of course willingly and fully confessed. 
And it is, perhaps, but justice to the parties, to admit that 
they have not fully considered the relation between their 
theory and the atheistic philosophy to which some of them 
have committed themselves. This is the less unlikely, from 
the indications they give that their acquaintance with 
Comte's system is derived mainly from the meagre and 
partial synopsis contained in G. H. Lewes's "Biographical 
History of Philosophy." This is the only exposition of pos- 
itivism which they quote. If fully aware, moreover, of the 
position they were assuming, they could hardly have ranged 
themselves so complacently among those whom a well-in- 
formed reviewer (North British Review, May, 1854,) so 
justly characterizes as "a cohort of narrow-minded enthu- 
siasts and half-believing admirers, who, on the authority 



74 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

of Mill and Lewes, are taking the atheistic positivism as 
their creed, while it is unnoticed by the profoundest minds 
of the age." 

]Sor could they have claimed, with such supreme satis- 
faction, to have passed, under Comte's leadership, " beyond 
that undeveloped stage of the reasoning faculties classified 
as theological," and to have taken their place " among the 
educated who are creating new religions for themselves," 
had they not been ignorant of the pregnant fact, that the 
latest development of their master's system, and of the 
vaunted process of education toward " creating new reli- 
gions," is an actual return to the very lowest form of " the- 
ological" folly. That Comte himself, the denier of a God, 
under the desolation of bereavement, when Madame Clo- 
tilde de Yaux, the object of his love, was torn from him 
by death, sought relief for an aching heart in the most 
absurd Fetischism of his own construction; human beings, 
and the higher beasts, in the aggregate of their vitality, 
constituting his god, and Madame Clotilde, under some 
fanciful notion, a supreme goddess. 

Whether, however, aware or unaware of all this, these 
writers are, by the simple fact of giving it unconditional 
indorsement, more than abundantly discredited as trust- 
worthy explorers of truth. If in possession of the whole 
case, they have deceived; if not so possessing it, they have 
trifled with their readers. And in either event there is 
most culpable unfairness. Authors who venture to deal 
destructively with the practical groundwork of human con- 
victions, and to substitute what they are bold enough to pro- 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 75 

claim a better system, which, notwithstanding, they have 
not half examined, are egregiously misleading, and may 
be fatally deluding all who accept their proffered guid- 
ance. 

In all these improprieties of tone, manifestations of tem- 
per, and proofs of prejudice, which we are compelled to 
notice as pervading the discussions connected with the 
diversity doctrine in its latest phase, we find inevitable 
considerations of conclusive cogency, forbidding any ready 
acceptance of that doctrine. And these considerations, 
superadded to the associations which it involves, as we 
have seen, with the absurdities of Lamarck's hypothesis — 
and to its injurious bearing, previously indicated, upon the 
moral code of Christendom — and the securest sanctions of 
our Southern social organization, make out so strong a 
case of prima facie practical impossibility against the 
theory, that every right-minded man may at once feel justi- 
fied in setting it aside as satisfactorily shown to be unten- 
able and untrue. 

This mode of reaching the conclusion, however, though 
doubtless sound, and perhaps satisfactory to those every- 
where-to-be-respected individual minds whose determina- 
tions are governed by the seldom-erring practical logic of 
common sense, may not suffice as an ultimate exposition 
for that class of inquirers who look to a scientific solution 
of the important problem. We shall therefore need no 
apology for going more thoroughly into an analytical exam- 
ination of the entire question, to the full extent, indeed, of 
the moderate limits we believe best adapted to usefulness. 



76 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Our method will be, to scrutinize the principal considera- 
tions relied upon by the advocates of the diversity theory; 
and then to adduce, in order, the chief evidences which 
establish, in our judgment conclusively, the specific unity 
and organic identity of all varieties of the human family. 

The first proposition urged in support of the diversity 
doctrine is, that some very marked and otherwise unac- 
countable relation exists, throughout the habitable globe, 
between the flora and fauna of different districts, as 
grouped by nature, independently to a great degree of 
climate, and the distribution of human varieties. This 
proposition rests mainly upon the authority of Professor 
Agassiz, a gentleman for whose abilities and attainments 
we, in common with all who are even partially acquainted 
with the scientific achievements of the age, entertain very 
high respect, but whose suggestions on points touching the 
natural history of man must be regarded as far from con- 
clusive. Partly because his special range of study has 
lain in another field ; partly because he has exhibited in 
this department a fanciful and fluctuating genius, now in- 
clining to one and now to another opinion ; and partly be- 
cause in the very act of lending his name and influence to 
the doctrine that men "were created in nations," he admits 
an enduring doubt as to an original diversity at all. "I 
still hesitate," are his words, in the very paper announcing 
the proposition now in view, on "Provinces of the Animal 
World, and their Relations to the Types of Man, 1854," 
"2 still hesitate to assign to each (variety) an inde- 
pendent origin." To appreciate the force of this doubt, 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. IT 

we must take it in connection with a favorite and elo- 
quently urged conviction of this eminent zoologist. "We 
recognize," he says, (Christian Examiner, January, 1850,) 
"the fact of the unity of mankind. It excites a feeling 
that raises men to a most elevated sense of their connection 
with each other. It is but the reflection of that divine na- 
ture which pervades the w T hole being. It is because men 
feel thus related to each other, that they acknowledge those 
obligations of kindness and moral responsibility which rest 
upon them in their mutual relations. Where the relation- 
ship of blood has ceased, do we cease to acknowledge that 
general bond which unites all men of every nation ? By 
no means. This is the bond which every man feels more 
and more the farther he advances in his intellectual and 
moral culture, and which in this development is continually 
placed upon higher and higher ground — so much so, that 
the physical relation, arising from a common descent, is 
finally lost sight of in the consciousness of higher moral 
obligations. It is this consciousness which constitutes the 
true unity of mankind." Nobly said, certainly, in vindica- 
tion of oneness of nature in all men, and in inconsistency, 
most sound-judging persons will think, with strenuous 
advocacy of diversity of origin. For, why the needlers 
multiplication of miracle in giving being to a prolific crea- 
ture, inclentical in nature, in a thousand, or a hundred, or 
ten simultaneous or successive different pairs, or "nations," 
in so many regions of the earth ? Such expenditure of 
special power is assuredly not in accordance with the anal- 
ogies of Providence. No wonder the distinguished phi- 



78 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

losopher "hesitates to assign to each human variety an in- 
dependent origin." To his main proposition, therefore, 
sustaining the idea of manifold autochthon tribes, no great 
weight can be attached, nor to the particulars supposed to 
establish it. 

The exact words of Agassiz, in stating his thesis, are: 
"That the boundaries within which the different natural 
combinations of animals are known to be circumscribed 
upon the surface of our earth, coincide with the natural 
range of distinct types of man." Here, at the outset will 
be noticed an immense fallacy, under the single phrase 
"natural range" which vitiates the entire proposition. It 
either involves the assumption of an original starting up 
of earth-born nations, each in its own "natural" district, a 
doctrine about which the learned professor declares that to 
the end he "hesitates;" or, it asserts some other fixed 
relation between regions and races, irreconcilably in con- 
flict with the plainest facts. If it be meant that Europe, 
for instance, had native clans anterior to the immigration 
of Teutons, Celts, etc., or their earliest wandering prede- 
cessors, and that our Indian tribes sprang up in their 
several "natural ranges," without connection with other 
parentage, then what is it but the most obvious petilio 
prineipii, the merest taking for granted the very thing 
sought to be proved through the laborious processes of 
massive volumes, without at last dispelling the mists of 
doubt from this very leading mind? But if this be not 
what is meant, then may it be unanswerably urged, what 
original and fixed relation England and its flora and fauna 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. T9 

sustain to the present Anglo-Saxon population, or to any 
other people that have entered the island from abroad? 
And what is the " natural range" of the spreading popu- 
lation of the United States ? 

But not to dwell upon this radical unsoundness of the 
proposition in question, let its alleged supports be exam- 
ined. They are such affirmations as these: "Among the 
animals which compose the fauna of a country, we find 
types belonging exclusively there, and not occurring else- 
where;" "the grand divisions of the animal kingdom are 
primordial, independent of climate." And upon these 
affirmations, in connection with the general proposition of 
coincident human types and zoological groups, it is sweep- 
ingly alleged, "that the laws which regulate the diversity 
of animals, and their distribution upon earth, apply equally 
to man, within the same limits, and in the same degree." 

Now, granting, as is undoubtedly true, that instances 
occur of very restricted existence of certain classes, alike 
in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and that, apart 
from human agency, neither plant nor animal of any one 
kind can be found indiscriminately scattered through every 
region where it could exist ; yet, is it not plain that the 
fact bears directly against the assertion, that men are con- 
trolled within the same limits, and in the same degree, as 
other living things, by the laws which regulate diversity ? 
And that it bears also very strikingly in favor of an ori- 
ginal creation of men in only one centre ? Why, it may 
be confidently urged, should it be supposed that unlimit- 
edly migratory man was "created in nations," the world 



80 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

over, when the unwieldly walrus is confined to the Arctic 
shores, the awkward kangaroo, under whatever varieties 
that exist, to the arid wastes of Australia, and the scarcely 
locomotive sloth to a limited district of Southern America ? 
And how did it happen that not a horse, cow, sheep, goat, 
hog, dog, or cat, of all the numerous varieties of these 
creatures elsewhere domesticated by man, was found in 
1492, existing on the American islands and continent, 
in companionship with the men there supposed to have 
once waked up "in nations" out of dust, or metamor- 
phosed lizards, or something of that sort? Why, if the 
laws which regulate diversity apply equally in the same 
limits and degree to man and to the lower creatures, did 
not the "nations" that happened to rise up somehow in 
America, find, on rubbing their eyes and looking about 
them, some of these very useful, voiceless servants at hand, 
which they might tame and turn to good account ? The 
instinctive sagacity of a sound mind at once determines 
these questions against the diversity theory. An inference 
from analogy is immediately suggested, that if other orders 
of animals were originally given being in only one locality, 
so, probably, was man. That if the lower creatures, so 
universally adapted to his use, had not their "natural 
range" in America, in the sense of being created there, 
neither had he, but that he found his way thither by 
routes which admitted not of their transfer. A conclu- 
sion, which, as will be presently seen, is remarkably con- 
firmed by Lieut. Maury's discoveries respecting air and 
ocean currents, and by linguistic and other facts copiously 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 81 

furnished in the valuable national work edited by Dr. 
Schoolcraft. 

The statement that the grand divisions of the animal 
kingdom are altogether independent of climate, cannot be 
maintained in any sense subsidiary to the notion of like 
" primordial" diversities among men. It is no doubt true 
that climate alone did not determine the original positions 
assigned different classes of plants and animals, and yet is 
it equally certain that every organized form does sustain a 
very marked relation to climate. "The migration of quad- 
rupeds from one part of the globe to another," observes Sir 
Charles Lyell, (Elements of Geology, vol. iii. p. 16, etc.) 
"is prevented by uncongenial climates, and the branches of 
the ocean which intersect continents. . . . Where the conti- 
nents of the Old and New World approximate toward each 
other on the North, the narrow straits which separate 
them are frozen over in winter, and the distance is further 
lessened by intervening islands. Thus a passage from one 
continent to another becomes practicable for such quadru- 
peds as are fitted to endure the intense cold of the Arctic 
circle; accordingly the whole Arctic region has become one 
of the provinces of the animal kingdom, and contains many 
species common to both the great continents. But the 
temperate regions of America, which are separated by a 
wide extent of ocean from those of Europe and Asia, con- 
tain each a distinct nation of indigenous quadrupeds." 
Yet man is there, under only "such variation of form, 
color, and organization," remarks the same widely-informed, 
unprejudiced, and coolly-judging author, "as has been con- 



82 SCIENCE A WITNESS EOR THE BIBLE. 

vincingly proved to be perfectly consistent with the gener- 
ally received opinion of an origin from a .single pair." 
And, continues the same philosophic investigator, "were 
ilie whole of mankind now cut off with the exception of 
one family, inhabiting the Old or the New Continent, or 
Australia, or even some coral islet of the Pacific, ice 
might expect their descendants, though they should never 
become more enlightened than the South Sea Islander, or 
the Esquimaux, to spread in the course of ages over the 
whole earth, diffused partly by the tendency of popula- 
tion to increase, in a limited district, beyond the means 
of subsistence, and partly by the accidental drifting of 
canoes by tides and currents to distant shores." 

With this unmistakable announcement, by one admitted 
to have no superior in this department of science, might 
safely be left the refutation already given of the notion, 
that well-defined distinctions between human races coin- 
cide with corresponding limits of definitely circumscribed 
zoological realms, independently of climate, and only ex- 
plicable on the theory of original diversities. 

But there are other facts of so striking a character, in 
irreconcilable conflict with that notion, that it is scarcely 
allowable to pass on without listening a moment to their 
decisive utterance. One of these facts is the established 
unity of the whole American race, notwithstanding im- 
mense diversities of form, color, and appearance, from the 
misshapen and miserable occupants of Terra del Fuego, 
to the lordly Iroquois, whom our fathers found so formid- 
able, and the half-torpid Esquimaux still gorging them- 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 83 

selves with blubber on the Arctic coasts. To this fact the 
venerable Mr. Gallatin, so long and so remarkable an 
investigator of the Indian dialects, bears the following 
testimony, in perhaps the last public document penned bj 
his hand: "The several languages of the aborigines 
of America, as far as they have been examined, seem to 
leave no doubt of the unity of that race.'' 1 (See Letter in 
Dr. Schoolcraft's Work, vol. iii. p. 9T.) To the same fact, 
Dr. Morton also, in the last paper ever prepared by himself 
for publication, and the completion of which was even pre- 
vented by his death, thus bears witness : "A certain same- 
ness of organization among such multitudinous tribes 
seems to prove, in the geographical sense, the origin of 
one to have been equally the origin of all." (Paper in 
Schoolcraft, vol. ii. p. 316. And even Agassiz does not 
deny this fact; on the contrary, he assumes the American 
race, in its totality, as one of the eight originally "created 
nations," which he arbitrarily adopts for his purpose; 
though other authors claim a different, and some an in- 
definite, number of such "nations." Now with this great 
fact of human oneness throughout so vast a region, there is 
plainly no reconciling the learned professor's asserted same- 
ness of localities for groups of animal species and types 
of men. Such reconciliation is attempted indeed by 
sweeping into one group the endlessly diversified, and in 
some instances irreconcilably dissociated classes of animals 
between Labrador and Cape Horn. But such classification 
is too manifestly a forcing of facts to suit a theory to be 
other than worthless. 



84 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

When the formidable grisly bear of the Rocky Mount- 
ains, and the bison multitudes of the Northwestern prairies, 
with their associated fur and feather clad companions, are 
discovered dwelling beneath the same skies as the ferocious 
jaguar of Brazil, the strange ant-eater and sloth, and the 
gorgeous feathered tribes of inter-tropical America, then, 
and not till then, can anything like a unity of animal 
species be affirmed as coinciding with that of the human 
variety pervading the continent. 

Another fact of the same character, and conducting to 
the same conclusion, is the unity also established of the 
human families, dwelling in the broad area between the 
delta of the Ganges, the Pillars of Hercules, and the 
shores of the Baltic. Comparative philology, of which in 
another connection we shall adduce the testimony, has 
placed this fact beyond all question. In the language of 
one of Bunsen's coadjutors, in his great work, Christianity 
and Mankind, vol. iii. p. 180, " there was a time when 
the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Sclavonians, 
the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and Hindoos, were 
living together beneath the same roof." Yet who has ever 
heard of animal forms in the wilds of Scotland and Scan- 
dinavia analogous to the tigers and their associates amid 
the jungles of Bengal? 

Still another circumstance, controverting in just the 
opposite way the notion of coterminous human types and 
animal groups, is the very extensive coexistence of Papuan 
and other varieties of negroes, and nations of totally dif- 
ferent characteristics, in the great Malayan range of Poly- 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 85 

nesian Oceauica. " Black, woolly-haired people, resembling 
in their features and color the negroes of New Guinea, are 
widely spread in the Indian Archipelago. They inhabit 
the interior of many islands, from New Guinea, New 
Britain, and New Ireland, northward to the Philippines, 
and eastward to the Hebrides," (Prichard's Nat. Hist, of 
Man, p. 346 ;) while the Malayans occupying other por- 
tions of the same islands, and in Tahiti and other districts 
of the Polynesian Paradise, improved into some of the 
finest specimens of physical man, reaching round in an 
immense circuit, are found furnishing residents to the 
African islands of Madagascar, as proved by Humboldt. 
{Ibid., 341.) Any one who will turn to the portrait of a 
Nigrito boy, given by Commander Wilkes, of the United 
States Exploring Expedition, vol. v. p. 306, as a specimen 
of that race in the Philippines, will at once recognize a 
head and face the counterpart to which may be seen by 
scores on any Southern plantation. Yet the true Poly- 
nesian tribes of the same islands, especially the Irogotes 
and Pampagnons, are represented by Wilkes as a fine 
race. 

Now, either these two varieties of men must be admitted 
to be not both autochthons of that sweep of islands, or it 
must be acknowledged that human varieties are not coterm- 
inous with certain localities and zoological realms. It 
matters little which horn of the dilemma be chosen by the 
advocates of the diversity theory. Either way the fact 
bears directly against their hypothesis, that all the more 
marked varieties of men belong strictly to regions where, 

8 



86 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

in coimnon with coincident groups of plants and animals, 
they were originally developed. 

All these facts, and they might be almost indefinitely 
extended, prove, beyond question, that the accomplished 
Agassiz has permitted himself to yield to the temptation, 
offered, by a certain facility of escape from difficulty, in 
this adjustment, to arrange an arbitrary classification of 
human varieties, on the one hand, and, on the other, a fan- 
ciful grouping of animals into realms, so as to force them 
into a semblance of agreement, on his artificial plan, which 
is actually denied in the distributions of nature. Xo 
wonder, we repeat, he "hesitates" about the doctrine of 
original diversity, aware, as he cannot but be, of such 
radical unsoundness in the theory of distribution which he 
has been persuaded to throw off from a most ingenious and 
versatile mind. We have deemed it proper, on account of 
the influence of his name as a naturalist unsurpassed in 
his peculiar department, thus to indicate the total incon- 
clusiveness of his speculations concerning the origin, dis- 
tribution, and varieties of mankind. TTe close the refuta- 
tion of those speculations with another extract from the 
well-nigh decisive judgment of Sir Charles Lyell. 

"It is unnecessary," he says, (Elements of Geology, 
vol. iii. pp. IT, 121,) "to accumulate illustrations in order 
to prove that the stations of different plants and animals 
depend on a great complication of circumstances, on an 
immense variety of relations in the state of the animate 
and inanimate worlds. Every plant requires a certain 
climate, soil, and other conditions, and often the aid of 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 87 

many animals, to maintain its ground. Many animals feed 
on certain plants, being often restricted to a small number, 
and sometimes to one only; other members of the animal 
kingdom feed on plant-eating species, and thus become 
dependent upon the conditions not only of their prey, but 
of the plants consumed by them. . . . The possibility of the 
existence of a certain species in a certain place, or of its 
thriving more or less therein, is determined not merely by 
temperature, humidity, elevation, and other circumstances 
of the like kind, but also by the existence or non-exist- 
ence, scarcity or abundance, of a particular assemblage of 
other plants and animals in the same region. . . . Whereas 
the power of existing and multiplying in every latitude, 
and in every variety of situation and climate, which has 
enabled the great human family to extend itself over the 
habitable globe, is partly the result of the physical con- 
stitution, and partly of the mental prerogative of man. If 
he did not possess the most enduring and flexible corporeal 
frame, his arts would not enable him to be the inhabitant 
of all climates, and to brave the extremes of heat and 
cold, and the other destructive influences of local situation. 
Yet, notwithstanding this flexibility of bodily frame, we 
find no signs of indefinite departure from a common 
standard. And the intermarriages of individuals of the 
most remote varieties are not less fruitful than between 
those of the same tribe." 

The distinct judgment expressed in the latter portion of 
this quotation, concerning the specific oneness of the human 
family — under all the endlessly varying gradations of form, 



88 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

occasioned, within certain limits, by the operation of climate 
and other influences, on an original extraordinary flexibility 
of constitution — furnishes a suitable point of transition 
from one of the main propositions of the diversity ad- 
vocates, to its other leading affirmation — concerning a 
pristine, well-defined, non-transitional, unchangeable dis- 
tinction of species, in the diverse portions of our world's 
human population. The several statements embodying 
this affirmation may be expressed in the following proposi- 
tion, derived from Dr. Nott's Synopsis, Types of Mankind, 
p. 465:— 

"There exists a genus Homo, embracing many primor- 
dial types or species, which have remained permanent, 
and untransitional, through all recorded time, and despite 
the most opposite moral and physical influences." 

The stress of this proposition lies obviously in the 
asserted definiteness and permanence of the types spoken 
of. If there be, as alleged, clearly-marked boundaries be- 
tween unlike races, allowing of no intermediate gradations, 
which seem by insensible blendings to affiliate them, accord- 
ing to the diversified conditions of climate, habit, etc.; and 
if adequate proof be furnished, that such distinctions have 
existed since man appeared upon the earth, then it must 
be conceded that. the proposition is not only plausible, but 
probably sustained. But if there be any failure of evidence 
as to either of these subordinate elements, the proposition 
at once, be it noted, loses its claimed position as a truth 
scientifically established. For if there be any insensible 
blending of grades between the extreme varieties, so that 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 89 

no line of division can be truly drawn between one and 
another, then the affirmed non-transitional distinctness of 
types is immediately shown to be a merely arbitrary as- 
sumption, not authorized by the facts of nature. Or, 
supposing such separate, ungradational, clearly-defined 
diversities of race to be made out, and that they have 
existed for a very long time ; still, if the whole term of 
human existence be not clearly embraced in the evidence 
— if there occur any gap in the testimonies of time — 
if any ancient period be left to doubtful conjecture — then 
again is the proposition vitiated. Since no one can in that 
case allege the impossibility, or even improbability, of the 
introduction of strongly-marked varieties into one family, 
by some such secondary divine appointment as that of 
Genesis, ix. 25-2 T, to which the prevalent impression of a 
very remarkable tri-partition of human destiny is com- 
monly, and with reason, attributed. 

Now, the question is, can either of these two branches 
of the main proposition be fairly made out ? We are well 
assured, after very careful examination, that they cannot — 
that there exists indeed an absolute impossibility in the 
way of such proof, as to each of the points involved — 
that it is altogether, and in the nature of the case, im- 
practicable, with any certainty to trace cranial relics, or 
monumental delineations, or historical records, those of 
revelation being excluded, up within any definite approxima- 
tion of man's primeval age — and consequently impossible 
to trace diversities of race up to the beginning; that it is 
equally impracticable to point out races of men the most 

8* 



90 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

extreme in diversity, which have not, ranging between 
them, indefinite varieties so closely approximating either 
limit, as to constitute an insensibly blending gradational 
series, with no break in the progression, no interval admit- 
ting of a natural line of demarkation ; and that conse- 
quently it is doubly impossible scientifically to establish 
the proposition, in support of which crania are piled on 
crania, and diagram on diagram, in the multiplied pages 
of massive volumes. 

Let us, however, examine the argument under each 
head, and see if the general allegation be indeed sustained 
by facts. 

We take up the point of absolute, definitely bounded 
types without interblending varieties. Is it established? 
Is it true ? Does nature so speak ? 

Let the types, as they are called, be looked at separately, 
and then collectively. And here it occurs to remark upon 
this delusive term in a professedly scientific discussion. 
Types are marks, figures, modes ; species, in the scientific 
sense, are classes intrinsically distinct. And although, 
like almost all other general terms, this may be, and has 
been questioned as to its exact scope — whether it embraces 
sameness of parentage as well as correspondence of gov- 
erning qualities — yet is its meaning sufficiently agreed 
upon to make it the best general designation, in such in- 
quiries. Whereas, the introduction of another term, and 
one apparently indicating a fallacious mode of determining 
specific diversity, viz., by a few superficial marks, is calcu- 
lated to embarrass instead of elucidating the question, and 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 91 

seems, indeed, to involve a sort of tacit admission that at 
last the differences contended for as existing among men, 
are not exactly of the same kind as these scientifically ad- 
mitted in determining species among lower creatures. Not, 
however, to dwell on this. We summon the American 
type. Agassiz assumes this to be a unit. Mr. Gallatin 
declares, "no doubt is left of its being one race." Dr. 
Morton affirms "the origin of one to have been equally the 
origin of all." Yet what are the facts as to some of the 
most striking peculiarities which characterize varieties of 
men ? The very marked differences between the warlike 
hunting tribes, that disputed inch by inch with our fathers 
the possession of this great country, and the more com- 
pactly settled, and therefore more artificially cultivated but 
less vigorous people so cruelly oppressed and butchered by 
Cortez and Pizarro, who has not had occasion to notice ? 
Now, Dr. Morton testifies of the old Peruvians, "that they 
possessed a brain no larger than that of the Hottentot 
and New Hollander, and far below that of the barbarous 
hordes of their own race: 155 crania gave but 75 cubic 
inches for the average bulk of the brain. ... Of 22 Mex- 
ican crania the mean capacity was Y9 cubic inches, 4 above 
that of the Peruvians. . . . "While of 161 crania belonging 
to the nomadic tribes of North America, the average was 
84 cubic inches, 5 above that of the Aztecs and 9 beyond 
that of the Peruvians." (Dr. Schoolcraft's Work, vol. ii. 
p. 329.) 

Here, then, is an item of structure on which all advocates 
of specific diversity lay great stress, as strongly marking 



92 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

different types. Yet the highest authorities in this case 
testify that it is not specific or primordial, but only circum- 
stantial, and incident to habits of life. This is Dr. 
Morton's account of the matter. (Schoolcraft, vol. ii. p. 
239.) " We know that the government of the Incas was 
of the kind called paternal, and their subjects, in the moral 
and intellectual sense, were children, who seem neither to 
have thought or acted except at the dictation of a master. 
Theirs was an absolute obedience that knew no limit. 
Like the Bengalese, they made good soldiers in their 
native wars, not from any principle of valor, but from the 
mere sense of passive obedience to their superiors. But 
the condition of the savage is wholly different. His life is 
a sleepless vigilance, a perpetual stratagem ; and his brain, 
always in a state of activity, should be larger than that of 
the docile Peruvian, even though it ceased to grow after 
adult age." 

Again, as to shape of head, it is of a certain general 
standard, only "in greater or less degree," says the same 
eminent comparative physiologist. And it has exceptions ; 
"a more elongated form being seen among the Missouri 
tribes, and among the Iroquois and Cherokees." 

In stature there is a like deviation, e.g.: "Some of the 
tribes of Patagonia embrace a remarkable number of 
tall men, and perhaps their average stature exceeds that of 
any other of the affiliated natives;" while "whole tribes 
which possess a comparativelv low stature exist in South 
America." 

In color there are still wider differences. "The Char- 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 93 

roas, {ibid.) on the southern shores of the Rio de la Plata, 
are almost black, as are some of the California tribes; 
while the Batocudys of Brazil and the Borroas of Chili 
are examples of a comparatively fair tint And we are 
told that, among the islanders of St. Catharine's, on the 
coast of California, young persons have a mixture of white 
and red in their complexions, presenting a singular contrast 
to the inhabitants of the adjacent mainland. . . . The fair- 
ness of the Mandans of the Upper Missouri is proverbial." 
"There are many of these people," says Catlin, (Customs 
of North American Indians, vol. i. p. 94,) "whose com- 
plexions appear as light as half-breeds ; and among women 
especially there are many whose skins are almost white, 
with the most pleasing symmetry and perfection of fea- 
tures, with hazel, with gray, and with blue eyes." 

"With regard to hair, Mr. Catlin also states, concerning 
that of the tribe just mentioned, that it is generally "as 
fine and as soft as silk," while the usual characteristic 
of this appendage to the Indian ensemble, is its long, 
black, and coarse texture. And even conceding to the 
microscopic observations of Mr. Browne of Philadelphia 
an authority altogether discredited by later and fuller 
researches, this variation in the head-covering of the red 
men may still be noticed. A circular section is exhibited 
by Mr. Browne as generally belonging to the Indian hair, 
while the slightly oval marks that of the European, and 
the flattened ellipse that of the negro; yet specimens are 
given by him of the oval section from the Indian head, 
and of a measurement not exceeding that exhibited in the 



94 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

best Caucasian blood, e.g. the two diameters of the oval 
section of a hair from the head of a Choctaw Indian, 
are given as respectively gj ¥ and ^ v of an inch; and the 
corresponding measurement of a hair from the noble head 
of Washington 3^ and ±\q. (Schoolcraft, vol. iii. p. 383.) 
Nor can it be doubted that the soft and silken locks of the 
Mandans, described by Catlin, correspond, in minute struc- 
ture, with the auburn tresses of our own bright beauties. 

Here, then, is a single race of men presenting in itself a 
very wide range of variation in almost every one of the 
great features regarded as marking one type from another, 
indefinitely approximating, on the one hand, the structure 
and appearance of well-developed Europeans, and on the 
other, those of the more degraded, unintellectual, and 
swarthy portions of the human family. The first support 
of the diversity proposition under review seems fairly to 
break down under the pressure of this one fact. 

But the great Indo-European family exhibits a precisely 
similar scene of almost endless variation. Who is not 
familiar with the characteristic features of the sons of 
Erin, in contrast with those of the countrymen of Kosci- 
usko, and those of the kinsmen of Palafox ? London and 
Paris, Naples and Athens, St. Petersburg and Madrid, 
present each its own standard of a great human variety; 
and yet how widely different are they all from the ancient 
people of Sanscrit speech in that vast peninsula of South- 
ern Asia, where 

"The rich soil, 
Washed by a thousand rivers, from all sides 
Pours on the nations wealth without control !" 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 95 

"The inhabitants are swart, and in their locks 
Betray the tint of the dark hyacinth. " 

So, again, with the prodigious multitudes of ever-vary- 
ing human creatures spread over the immense area from 
Finland and Hungary, through the wide tract of Northern 
and Central Asia. These, all that can be included under 
the general appellations of Finns, Hungarians, Tartars, 
Turks, Samoieds, Mongolians, and Tungusians, have been 
shown, by the untiring researches of Eask, Schott, and 
Castren, into their speech, to constitute one great family 
of men. "After studying," says Castren, "for a long 
number of years, Finnic, Samoiedic, Turkic, Mongolic, 
and Tungusic dialects, it seems, as far as I can see from 
my own researches, that there exists between them both a 
formal and a material congruence, . . . and that they be- 
long to one class or race." (Biinsen, vol. iii. p. 278.) 
Yet, who that looks upon the specimens of these various 
tribes, as rudely given in our common illustrated modern 
geographies, but must be struck with the interminable 
gradations with which they blend into each other, between 
extreme limits, which themselves blend, on the one side, 
into the highest European, and, on the other, into the 
lowest form of broad-cheeked, narrow-headed, low-statured, 
fish-eating barbarians ! 

Passing over the great Malayo-Polynesian range, already 
alluded to, of blended varieties, between limits approxima- 
ting the Caucasian in Tahiti and elsewhere, and the dark, 
crisp-haired Hawaiians and others verging negroward ; 



96 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

and the Shemitic stock, varying between the traits of the 
fair daughters of Judah and those of the black Bedouins 
of Arabia; we next view the generally tanned and often 
woolly -haired, but still endlessly varied inhabitants of 
Africa, undistinguishably blended between the Berber 
and Egyptian of one extreme, and the Guineans, Hot- 
tentots, and Caffres of the other. The following is the 
strong testimony of so thoroughly informed a witness 
as Professor Lepsius: "You speak," he says to the 
authors of Types of Mankind, p. 233, "of a gradation 
in the people of the continent of Africa, from the Cape 
to the North. It is a very curious fact that the lan- 
guages of the Hottentots and Bushmen . . . bear some 
characteristic traits, which are found in the tongues of 
Northeastern Africa. . . . The whole African continent 
had, in my view, within a certain time a parent popula- 
tion, and its languages were consequently analogous. I 
understand what you designate a negroid type in the 
Egyptian figures, and I have nothing against that observa- 
tion. But the fact does not interfere with their principal 
character being Asiatic." So also Mr. Birch, of the British 
Museum, (ibid.:) "You are quite right as to the interme- 
diate relation of Egypt to the Asiatic and Nigritian races." 
In connection with the above expression of Lepsius, we 
quote from him a still more striking fact, (Letters from 
Egypt, xxvi.) "I have prepared the grammar and vocab- 
ulary of the language of the Bischaribas, inhabiting the 
eastern portion of the Soudan, . . . and both with refer- 
ence to its grammatical construction, #nd its position in the 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 9?. 

development of languages, it proves itself to be a very re- 
markable member of the Caucasian stock" 

" Moreover," says Biinsen, (vol. iii., p. 185,; the roots 
of the Egyptian language are, in the majority of cases, 
monosyllabic, and on the whole identical with the corre- 
sponding roots in Sanscrit and Hebrew." 

Here, therefore, entering Africa by the valley of the 
Nile, we find that early civilized and intelligent, though 
strangely idolatrous people, so much dealt with by the 
Scriptures and the old classic writers, blending, by lan- 
guage and many physical and intellectual characteristics, 
with the Japhetic and Shemitic stocks. Passing southward, 
the same race is tracked, by the sure guidance of affiliated 
tongues, through Soudan and Abyssinia. The predomi- 
nant color of the ancient Egyptians is represented, as is 
well known, on their monumental tablets, etc., as of a 
peculiar red. And all the Nubians of the Nile, or Ber- 
berines, are, for the most part, (Prichard's Nat. Hist. Man, 
p. 285,) "of a red-brown complexion, sometimes approach- 
ing black, but still different from the ebony hue of the 
negroes proper. Their hair often frizzled and thick, yet 
not precisely similar to that of the negroes of Guinea." 
Of the Abyssinians, Baron Larrey says, (ibid., 287,) "that 
they belong to the same general class with the Berberines 
and Egyptians: countenances full, without being puffed; 
eyes beautiful, clear, almond-shaped, languishing ; cheek- 
bones projecting; noses nearly straight, rounded at the 
ends ; nostrils dilated ; mouth of moderate size ; lips thick ; 

9 



98 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

teeth white, regular, and scarcely projecting; beard and 
hair black and crisp; and complexion the color of cop- 
per." 

11 Connected with the Abyssinians are the Gallas, a race 
extensively spread in eastern inter-tropical Africa, and one 
of those holding an intermediate place between the Ara- 
bian on the one side and the negro on the other." 

"Their countenance," says Dr. Euppell, "is rounder 
than that of other Abyssinian nations : noses straight, but 
short; lips thick, but not yet like those of the negroes; 
hair thick, and strongly frizzled, and almost woolly." (Ibid., 
pp. 285-87.) 

From the lower Nile, tracing westward the Mediterranean 
border of Africa to the Straits, we note various Berber 
tribes, spread over the region of ancient Lybia, Here the 
Tyrian colonists of old found both fixed and desert-roving 
tribes — 

"Hinc Getulce urbes, genus insuperabile bello, 
Et Nuniidae infreni cingtmt, et inhospita Svrtis ; 
Hinc deserta siti regio, lateque furentes 
Barcaei." .... 

And here African chiefs — 

.... "Iarbas, 
Ductoresque alii, quos Africa terra triumphis 
Dives alit " 

deemed themselves fit suitors for fair Dido's hand. 

These Berbers are described as "in general of a swar- 
thy color, with dark hair; but those who inhabit the moun- 
tains of Auress, or Mons Aurarius, though they speak the 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 99 

same language, are of a fair and ruddy complexion, and. 
their hair is of a deep yellow." {Ibid., p. 265.) The 
Tuarik Berbers, consisting of many different tribes spread 
through all the habitable part of the great plain of Sahara, 
are especially remarkable, since they are found to "differ 
from each other most strikingly in physical traits, accord- 
ing to the climates where they dwell : being in some parts 
white, in others black, but without the features of negroes." 
(Ibid.) 

Southward, to the mountain chain which ranges nearly 
parallel to the equator and at a distance of some 10° 
therefrom nearly bisecting the continent, including all that 
can be occupied of the vast sandy sea, is an immense ex- 
panse over which are spread a still greater variety. Some 
of the people of the interior are described as "very hand- 
some;" the nations of Haiissa, for example, whom Mr. 
Jackson declares to "possess a peculiarly open and noble 
countenance, with prominent noses, and expressive eyes." 
(Ibid., p. 294.) While others, for instance the Barnawi, 
are reputed to be more like the ideal negro. And as to 
the intellectual capacities of these tribes, the description 
which the celebrated Mungo Park gives of Lego, the capi- 
tal of Bambarra, may serve as an illustration. " The view 
of this extensive city, numbering some 30,000 inhabitants, 
with its flat-roofed, two-story houses ; its mosques seen in 
every quarter; the ferries conveying men and horses over 
the Niger; the numerous canoes upon the river; the 
crowded population; and the cultivated state of the sur- 
rounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civiliza- 



100 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tion and magnificence which I little expected to find in the 
bosom of Africa." {Ibid.) 

Toward the Atlantic extremity of the great equatorial 
mountain chain are found still other varieties of men. On 
the northward slope range the Mandingoes, one of the 
most powerful, numerous, and intelligent of the African 
races. G-olberry affirms of them that "they resemble the 
blacks of India more than those of Africa." (Ibid.) 
Though Park states that they are not so handsome as the 
Joloffs, who are the most beautiful and at the same time 
the blackest people in Africa, and with hair of the kind 
termed completely woolly. The color of the Mandingoes 
is a yellowish black. Some of them, according to Major 
Laing, resemble the ancient Romans in many of their cus- 
toms. 

On the western declivity of the Hong chain occur in 
power the Fulahs, a people identical with the conquering 
Felatahs in Central Africa. The intelligent French trav- 
eler, M. Golberry, describes them as "fine men, robust, 
and courageous ; possessing a strong mind ; cautious and 
prudent; understanding commerce, and traveling in the 
capacity of merchants even to the extremity of the Gulf 
of Guinea." "Their women," he says, "are handsome 
and sprightly. The color of their skin is a kind of red- 
dish black. Their countenances are regular, and their 
hair is longer than, and not so woolly as, that of the com- 
mon negroes. Their language also is more elegant and 
sonorous than are those of the nations by whom they are 
surrounded." (Ibid.) From their appearance, and other 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 101 

circumstances connected with the Felatahs and Fulahs, M. 
d'Eichthal, in an elaborate memoir, maintains that they are 
an offset from the Polynesian race. 

On the southern slope of the great range of mountains 
which terminates in the Sierra, and reaching round 
through a vast circuit of maritime country, to the inner 
angle of the Bight of Benin, are found the people present- 
ing the negro traits in full development. Upon these it is 
needless to dwell, familiar as they are to almost every resi- 
dent in the United States. 

The interior of Africa south of the equator has of 
course been less satisfactorily explored than its northern 
expanse ; still, reliable researches have also been here made, 
and especially have the recent discoveries of Dr. Living- 
stone thrown important light upon the geographical, eth- 
nological, and kindred questions connected with this part 
of the continent. 

Professor Bitter had, some time since, after the fullest 
investigation then practicable, represented the great pla- 
teau of Southern Africa as rising in every part at no great 
distance from the coast, supported on each side by a moun- 
tainous border, which offers an immense barrier in front 
of the surrounding ocean. "This elevated basin, it is 
believed, like all other regions so situated, contains 
vast lakes and immense mountain plains, a theatre where 
mankind must have formed themselves into peculiar races, 
during immemorial times, as they received the impress 
which physical agents were fitted to produce. In a coun- 
try so analogous in its conditions to the high regions of 

9* 



102 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Eastern Asia, we should expect to find some points of re- 
semblance in the tribes of people to the inhabitants of the 
last-named region. Accordingly, in the nations of South 
Africa there are many points, both in their physical and 
moral character, which bear a comparison with the great 
nomadic tribes of Mongolia and Daouria." (Prichard.) 

These conclusions, though in part modified by Dr. Liv- 
ingstone's discovery, that "the interior of Southern Africa 
is a vast, fertile, watery plateau of less elevation than 
flanking hilly ranges,' 7 (see Livingstone's Trav. and Res. 
in S. Africa, pp. 287 and 539,) are much more than con- 
firmed by his observations on the characteristics of the 
various tribes spread over this region. 

We can only glance at the peculiarities of these South- 
ern races. The Hotentots, like our Indians, have deterio- 
rated and dwindled before the devastations of a vitiated 
civilization. They were a pastoral people, active and 
courageous, though, under a peculiar patriarchal govern- 
ment, mild and contented. Now, through severe treat- 
ment, they have become the most degraded of men. 

Their descendants, the miserable Bushmen, as described 
by the missionary Bonatz, are "of small stature, dirty- 
yellow color, prominent forehead, much depressed nose, 
and thick projecting lips. Their constitution is so much 
injured by dissolute habits, and constant smoking of duhra, 
that both old and young look wrinkled and decrepit." 
Dr. Knox testifies, from abundant personal observation, 
that the face of the Hottentot resembles that of the Kal- 
muc, except in the greater thickness of the lips ; and he 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 103 

sets them down as a branch of the Mongolian race. In 
some important points their crania resemble those of the 
Northern Asiatics, and Esquimaux. (Prichard.) 

"The people," says Livingstone, p. 366, "who inhabit 
the central region of South Africa are not all quite black 
in color. Many incline to that of bronze, and others are 
as light in hue as the Bushmen, who, it may be remem- 
bered, afford a proof that heat alone does not cause black- 
ness, but that heat and moisture combined do very mate- 
rially deepen the color. Wherever we find people who 
have continued for ages in a hot, humid district, they are 
deep black. . . . The Batoka who live in an elevated region, 
are, when seen in company with the Batoka of the rivers, 
so much lighter in color that they might be taken for 
another tribe." 

The Caffres, north and east of the Hottentots, are thus 
described by Professor Lichtenstein : "The universal char- 
acteristics of all the tribes of this great nation consist in 
an external form and figure, varying exceedingly from the 
other nations of Africa. They are taller, stronger, and 
better proportioned. Their color is brown ; their hair 
black and woolly. They have the high forehead and 
prominent nose of the Europeans, the thick lips of the 
negroes, and the high cheek-bones of the Hottentots." 
(Prichard.) This, Dr. Livingstone not only confirms, but 
extends. Of the entire central southern region, he says, 
p. 408: "All the inhabitants have a certain thickness and 
prominence of lip, but many are met with in every village 
in whom thickness and projection are not more marked 



104 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

than in Europeans. All are dark, but the color is shaded 
off in different individuals from deep black to light yellow. 
As we go westward, we observe the light color predom- 
inating over the dark, and then again, when we come 
within the influence of damp from the sea air, we find the 
shade deepen into the general blackness of the coast pop- 
ulation. The shape of the head, with its woolly crop, 
though general, is not universal. The tribes on the eastern 
side of the continent, as the Caffres, have heads finely 
developed and strongly European." 

Of a tribe in the very centre of the southern plateau, 
about south latitude 10°, and east longitude 19°, he adds, 
p. 486: "The people in these parts seemed more slender 
in form, and their color a lighter olive, than any we had 
hitherto met. Several were seen with the upward inclina- 
tion of the outer angle of the eye. The mode of dressing 
the great masses of woolly hair which lay upon their 
shoulders, together with their general features, reminded 
me of the ancient Egyptians." 

Ascending northward along the Eastern coast, are 
people analogous to the Caffres, and speaking cognate 
tongues. "The farther our travelers advanced from the 
coast," says Captain Owen, "the more they observed the 
natives to improve in appearance. Of those of Moroora, 
some are perfect models of the human form ; their hair is 
not woolly, but grows long, turns in slender curls, and is 
neatly plaited." (Prichard.) 

In his "Researches," Prichard has shown that there are 
strong grounds for concluding that all the nations known 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 105 

to inhabit Africa, south of the equator, with the exception 
of the Hottentots, speak idioms, which, if not dialects of 
one mother tongue, may be considered as belonging to one 
family of languages. And the exception thus noticed will 
be at once associated with the fact, before quoted from 
Lepsius, that the dialects of the Hottentots and Bushmen 
are of the same family with those of Northeastern Africa. 
Here again later exploration has confirmed and extended 
such well-grounded conclusions. "The dialects spoken in 
the extreme south," says Livingstone, p. 361, "whether 
Hottentot or Caffre, bear a close affinity to those of the 
tribes living immediately on their northern borders; one 
glides into the other, and their affinities are so easily de- 
tected that they are at once recognized to be cognate. If 
the dialects of extreme points are compared, as that of the 
Caffres and those of the tribes near the equator, it is more 
difficult to recognize the fact, which is really the case, that 
all the dialects belong to but two families of languages." 

We have thus made a rapid circuit of the vast African 
continent; glancing at its multitudinous tribes, some of 
whom deviate more widely from the fine European stand- 
ard than perhaps any other human varieties, the negroes 
of Australia possibly excepted, who are allied to those 
of New Britain, etc., and originally derived, most prob- 
ably, as will be seen, from Africa. And in the whole range 
we discover the same endless variations, and gradational 
blendings between the widest extremes, exhibited by all the 
other people of the earth. 

In color they vary through every shade, between the 



106 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

appropriate European that sometimes appeared in Egypt, 
and still exists in the neighborhood of Mount Atlas, and 
the polished ebony of the thoroughly dyed negro. In 
physiognomy, they range between the elegant Grecian 
outline and the exaggerated monstrosity of prognathous 
development. In texture, etc. of hair, they exhibit every 
grade, from the soft Asiatic, and even auburn locks of some 
Egyptians, and of the Aurarian Berbers, through the long 
and plaited ringlets of the Moroorian Caffres, the short 
and crisp curls of the Nubian Berberines, the thick and 
frizzled half wool-like covering of the diffused Galla, and 
the still more woolly head-growth of the sagacious Fulahs, 
and of most of the southern races, to the thoroughly de- 
veloped negro tufts of the Guinea tribes. 

In every important particular that marks varieties of 
men, the inhabitants of Africa vary with such indefinite 
blendings of one grade into another, between the Caucasian 
standard and the lowest negro specimen, that it is im- 
possible to draw a line of divison at any point of the scale, 
and affirm here one type ends and another begins. 

This, then, is the decision of America, of Europe, of 
Asia, of Oceanica, and of Africa. There are no absolute, 
definitely bounded types of men, without undistinguishably 
interblending varieties ; no such unconditionally fixed bound- 
aries, circumscribing precisely marked families, separating 
them from all others, and allowing of no transitional in- 
stances, as assumed in the diversity proposition ; and con- 
sequently the first postulate of that proposition neither is, 
nor can be sustained. 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 101 

We pass therefore to its other affirmation, permanence 
of type through all time. And here it is of course to be 
noticed, that with the evidence just adduced full in view, 
so entirely discrediting the assumption of definitely bounded, 
unblending varieties of men, we can only use the term type 
in this connection as designating an ideal model, supposed 
to be more or less approximated by individuals through 
some indefinite range. The point alleged, however, we 
wish distinctly and fairly to examine. It is, not only that 
there have been negroes in the world from the beginning, 
as well as Hindoos and Europeans, Mongolians, Samoied- 
ans, and North American Indians, but that Greek, Roman, 
and Celt, Scandinavian, Saxon, German, and Sclave, etc., 
and indeed almost every traceable people on the globe, are 
now, without change, save perhaps a little increase, just 
such as they were when first waking up to conscious 
being. 

"Nothing short of a miracle," is the strong and bold 
assertion, (Types Mankind, p. 89,) "could have evolved all 
the multifarious Caucasian forms out of one primitive 
stock." And attempts are seriously made to extort from 
history some support for the idea, that each tribe always 
had been what it subsequently was. So extravagant a 
doctrine, however, directly in the teeth of the most com- 
monly known historical facts, and totally disproved by 
undeniable linguistic affiliations, is not worth considerate 
refutation. It is immediately set aside by its own absurdity. 
Nor is this all; the earnest advocacy of a notion so 
obviously untrue, carries with it something more than 



108 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

suspicions for the whole theory. How can authors who 
blunder so seriously on points open to universal apprehen- 
sion, be relied upon as " knowing whereof they affirm," in 
matters of more recondite character? 

But not to take advantage of this extravagance in detail, 
we accept the question in its more prominent features, and 
candidly meet the inquiry concerning human forms the 
most widely separated. Has it been made out document- 
ally, monumentally, craniologically, or in any other way ? 
can it be made out, that the white race has remained un- 
changed, and the negro race unvarying, through all time, 
"in spite of all the climates of the globe?" 

The first consideration on the subject that at once 
occurs is, if it be so, it is a very wide departure from the 
general laws of specific existence. The following, says 
Lyell, may be admitted as laws prevailing in the economy 
of animated nature: "First, that the organization of in- 
dividuals is capable of being modified to a limited extent 
by the force of external causes ; secondly, that these mod- 
ifications are, to a certain extent, transmissible to their 
offspring; thirdly, that there are fixed limits, beyond 
which the descendants from common parents can never 
deviate from a certain type; fourthly, that each species 
springs from one original stock, and can never be per- 
manently confounded, by intermixing with the progeny of 
another stock." (Elements of Geology, vol. ii. p. 433.) If, 
then, it can be shown of the white race, or of the black, 
that no modification of organization has ever been pro- 
duced by extremes of climate, food, and other commonly 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 109 

operative influences, that can be demonstrated concerning 
them which can be exhibited in no other extensively dis- 
tributed species of animals on our planet. 

But the advocates of this theory, discerning the bearing 
of analogy against their scheme, very positively repudiate 
it as a legitimate element of scientific investigation, not- 
withstanding the implied necessity of relying on analogy 
at the very basis of every inductive method. "The diver- 
sity of races must be accepted by science as a fact," they 
say, (Types, p. 65,) "independently of theology, and of all 
analogies or reasons drawn from the animal kingdom." 
This is said, be it remarked, as a sort of preliminary to a 
most elaborate discussion, aiming to disprove the Bible, 
and show that "men were created in nations," and at last 
so utterly failing in the proof, that the leading scientific 
mind engaged, in spite of fanciful tendencies and strong 
partialities, pleads guilty to final doubt on the subject. 

But, passing by analogy, we address ourselves to the 
alleged evidence of facts. The Jews are adduced as a 
specimen of permanence. They certainly do stand mar- 
velously among the nations, unabsorbed, unobliterated, 
untransformed — a fossil people in the deposits of time. 
But the Christian derives from this instance what he justly 
deems a vastly better lesson than that suggested. And 
the physiologist finds influences kept in operation on the 
Jewish mind and habit, well calculated to react upon the 
physiognomy and preserve some of its marked features, 
under considerable changes of other kinds which the peo- 
ple are known to have undergone in different regions. 

10 



110 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Stress is also laid upon the correspondence between the 
crania gotten from ancient places of sepulture, and the 
modern heads of races in the same locality, supposed to be 
descended from those there buried. This, however, is 
plainly inconclusive to the purpose, since, in such cases, 
the former and the recent have existed under conditions 
too similar to necessitate a wide deviation. 

The main evidence, after all, relied upon, is the exist- 
ence of negro delineations on the monuments of Egypt. 
And we frankly acknowledge there is, at first view, some- 
thing in this circumstance apparently favoring the asserted 
original existence, even from the very first, of negro races ; 
but it is only on a superficial view, and merely in appear- 
ance. 

Nobody knows how many years or centuries elapsed be- 
tween the creation of man, or the flood of Noah, and the 
construction of those monuments. There may have been 
abundant time for the Nisus Formativi, or constitutional 
vital tendencies, severally imparted to the sons of one 
father, to be developed, under circumstances favorable to 
the introduction and transmission of the forms contem- 
plated in such imparted tendencies, to a very extreme 
degree. It by no means necessarily requires a very enor- 
mous period for peculiar influences to work out, in a spe- 
cies possessing some special tendencies, the extreme results 
which they are capable of producing. "It follows," says 
Sir Charles Lyell, (Elements of Geology, vol. ii. p. 464,) 
"from many facts, that a short period of time is generally 
sufficient to effect nearly the whole change which an alter- 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. Ill 

ation of external circumstances can bring about in the 
habits of a species.' 7 

It may very well have been, therefore, that the descend- 
ants of one son of a family, who had received a certain 
constitutional tendency, according to a great providential 
plan, passing into Egypt, occupied the rich valley of the 
Nile, and, after a moderate period, multiplying greatly, 
spread themselves to the southward, and experienced, un- 
der the operation of causes adapted to develop it, the evo- 
lution in varying measure of that general tendency they 
had inherited; until, ere long, the diversified grades of 
dark skin, crisped hair, and prominent lips were produced, 
terminating in the extreme of thorough negro peculiari- 
ties. And that individuals of the race thus developed 
should, in the course of no great number of centuries, 
considering the course of the Nile valley and the general 
relations of the country, be introduced into Egypt by 
curiosity, trade, or war, could hardly be otherwise than 
inevitable. 

Of this probability, some very remarkable confirmations 
are furnished in certain of Dr. Livingstone's late discov- 
eries. First, that the sources of the Nile occur, it seems, 
not in a lofty mountain region, difficult of access, but in 
the elevated, humid, southern plateau between south lati- 
tude 6° and 12°. (See Livingstone's Trav. p. 514.) Second, 
that the peculiar customs of flour and bread making, and 
of spinning and weaving, which he met with in the heart 
of Southern Africa, are the exact counterpart of pro- 
cesses delineated in the old Egyptian sketches. (See those 



112 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

sketches, as given from Wilkinson by Livingstone, pp. 213 
and 434.) 

Now, it is worthy of remark, in this connection, that 
while Biinsen and Lepsius, certainly the best Egyptolo- 
gists of this or any other age, from the monuments assign 
to the old Egyptian monarchy an antiquity reaching back 
to 3893 B.C. (See Egypt r s Place in Univ. Hist., passim.) 
Even the industrious propounders of the permanent-type 
doctrine, after scrutinizing the records from Memphis to 
Meroe, can find no negro delineation more ancient than 
"the twenty-fourth century B.C." (Types, p. 239.) It is 
true these authors claim the right to "infer that these 
Nigritian types were contemporary with the earliest Egyp- 
tians.' 7 But it is manifest that an inference filling so pro- 
digious a gap as sixteen centuries, is the mere substitution 
of bold assumption for non-existing evidence. Science no 
more allows such random leaps to conclusions, than justice 
would sanction the procedure of a jury hastening to con- 
sign a perhaps innocent fellow-creature to the gallows, by 
bridging with inferential guesses vast chasms in testimony. 

The truth is, the utter absence of all negro representa- 
tions, from the oldest Egyptian monuments, through a 
period, as yet ascertained, of sixteen hundred years, is a 
most significant fact in contravention of the very inference 
and theory of absolute original contemporaneousness. The 
very occurrence of a negroid form in those sketches, only 
at the end of a considerable period, during which the 
delineating art was practiced, is a striking indication that 
not till then had these forms become familiar in Egypt, 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 113 

a singular confirmation of the view entertained by Lepsius 
and Biinsen from their own researches, and of the proba- 
bilities we just now exhibited on independent grounds, that 
the African races were developed only in the course of 
ages from Egypt downward. 

In arguing thus, from the Manetho -monumental chro- 
nology, we neither admit nor deny its absolute correctness. 
It may be generally true. It may be partially erroneous. 
But we are authorized to suppose that through its entire 
range it is proportionally the one or the other So as, in 
either view, to leave the argument entirely valid. 

Nor, in conditionally admitting the most extended 
Egyptian chronology, or even some reasonable indefinite 
period between its farthest limit and the Noachian deluge, 
do we intend the slightest disrespect to the time-calcula- 
tions heretofore founded on the genealogical lists of the 
Bible. While believing with Biinsen (Egypt's Place, etc., 
p. 160,) and Lepsius (Letters from Egypt, p. 361,) that 
the Old Testament, as well as the New, was designed for 
practical religious benefit, and not by revelation to con- 
vey a full account of ancient chronology, or any other 
branch of mere human knowledge; and with Michaelis 
and Prichard, that the genealogical lists between Noah 
and Abraham may be incomplete, as indicated by a com- 
parison of Genesis, x. 24, and Luke, iii. 36; 1 Chronicles, 
vi. 1-4, and vii. 23-27, we also believe with them all, that 
there is in the world no other history so truthful, and, 
where it professes to give a complete, unbroken narrative, 
so accurate as that of the Bible. 

10* 



114 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Egypt and its monuments furnish, then, no reliable evi- 
dence for the contemporaneousness and permanence, ab 
initio, of the white and black varieties of men, or of pri- 
mordial specific distinctions between them. How else, 
indeed, should the most recent and most consummate 
Egyptologists be among the most earnest advocates, 
in the history of science, of a strict unity in the human 
family ? 

Another weak support for the primitive and ever-con- 
tinued diversity doctrine is derived from ancient human 
relics variously exhumed, and referred not only to a very 
remote age, but to races diverse as those now existing. 
For instance, a supposed Indian skull dug up from among 
buried stumps, etc., some sixteen feet below the surface, at 
New Orleans, and by a most credulous calculation assigned 
to an imaginary date 5T,000 years ago. Of such instances 
and their bearings we shall have more to say in our dis- 
cussion of "the age of mankind;" here it is sufficient to 
make a single remark. Inferences, founded on a fanciful 
scheme so totally in conflict with the known progress of 
history and of human development ; with the mature con- 
victions of Lyell, Murcheson, and the most accomplished 
geologists, at least up to a very recent period, to be noticed 
in the sequel ; with the candid admission of so able a sym- 
pathizer in the diversity doctrine as Dr. Jos. Leidy, (see 
his letter in the preface to " Indigenous Races of the Earth," 
1857,) "that no satisfactory evidence has been adduced in 
favor of this early appearance of man;" with the com- 
paratively recent dates of the oldest recorded astronomical 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 115 

observations, the most ancient of which ever heard of, 
Laplace tells us iri his Systeme du Monde, are some rude 
Chinese notices of eclipses 2000 years B.C., and the first 
that can be relied on at all only 1100 years B.C. ; and with 
the limited range of even Egyptian chronology, — are too 
preposterous to require serious refutation. 

One other statement, adduced in behalf of unchangeable 
permanence and primordial distinction of races, remains 
to be considered, viz., that the negroes in America have 
not improved, and are not improvable, save in some lower 
particulars scarcely worthy of notice. 

The remark of Sir Charles Lyell, that they are undergo- 
ing a manifest improvement, is pronounced "an unscientific 
assertion." "One or two generations of domestic culture," 
it is affirmed, "effect all the improvement of which the 
negro organism is susceptible." 

Respecting this, as a question of fact, most readers in 
the United States, certainly all residents of our Southern 
section, have some means of judging from personal obser- 
vation. Such observations, it is true, embrace too brief a 
period to furnish any satisfactory solution of the question ; 
still, they may give an impression entitled to some credit, 
as to the tendencies in the case, and especially when the 
observed characteristics of our blacks are compared with 
descriptions or delineations of the traits still prevalent in 
Guinea. Our own impression, derived from such sources 
and from life-long familiarity with Southern plantation- 
life, and intimate acquaintance with hundreds of the race, 
some of whom, as known by us in infancy, were natives of 



116 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Africa, is, that Lyell was not so much mistaken on this 
point; and that, notwithstanding exaggerated specimens 
of the lowest standard not unfrequently to be seen, there 
is on the whole, and apart from all suggested suspicions of 
mixed blood, a very marked improvement of the race — 
physically, intellectually, and morally. 

The accomplishment of such a result, indeed, may be 
regarded as among the final causes by which the destiny 
of that race in America has been determined. A principle 
which Southerners may, on the most solid basis of truth, 
triumphantly maintain against all opposers, in vindication 
of their moral position, as part of a vast scheme of an all- 
wise and benign Providence. Nay, the benefit has been 
incalculably beyond the improvement mentioned. For 
thousands, eveD millions, of these otherwise degraded 
heathen, have, in this peculiar situation, become, to all 
human appearance, partakers of the highest blessings of 
the everlasting gospel. This, indeed, is no excuse for the 
covetousness and cruelty commonly involved in their orig- 
inal capture and transportation, but it is, in connection 
with the lessons of Scripture already referred to, a full 
vindication of the general beneficence of this system of 
bondage, as in existence, and of the Christian virtue of 
those pious masters, who, holding their servants as under 
Divine sanction, endeavor faithfully to discharge the duties 
of their station under a sacred sense of responsibility to 
their "Master in heaven." (Col. iv. 1.) 

But in thus giving our impression on the particular 
point of a considerable degree of actual elevation, already 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 117 

effected, and to be still more accomplished for the race, 
through their experience in onr Southern country, we are 
by no means committing ourselves to a general theory of 
possible upward development in this or any other race. 
Elevation and degradation are very opposite processes, in 
individuals, families, and races. The one, according, as it 
would seem, to a prevalent constitution of nature, is for 
the most part comparatively easy to be effected, and soon 
consummated. The other, even when practicable, as often 
it is not, is extremely difficult and of slow attainment. 
Nor does it at all follow that because one set of influences 
rapidly evolves a deteriorating tendency to its lowest limit, 
influences of an opposite character can fully, if at all, 
restore the depreciated individual or class. A constitution 
seriously impaired by exposure or excess can seldom be by 
any means completely renovated ; and the taints of blood, 
fixed by repeated transmission, under circumstances adapted 
to the tendency, are sometimes ineradicable by any remedial 
measures. As the converse of a proposition is not neces- 
sarily true in logic, so the reverse of a deteriorating process 
may not be attainable in nature. The divine plan, though 
having admitted, under given conditions, a downward 
deviation from a stock coincident with the best Shemitic 
or Japhetic, to the lowest negro, may not, even under oppo- 
site conditions, admit a complete return to such coinci- 
dence. A very extensive range of improvability, indeed, 
in creatures of almost every class, under favorable in- 
fluences, must be admitted as a general law of nature. 
And such instances as the Mandan Indians, the Malayans 



118 SCIENCE A "WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

of Tahiti, the Aurarian Berbers, etc., actually exhibit that 
improvability in varieties of men of very marked character, 
and on a scale to which no low limit can be justly assigned. 
So that there is good reason to expect, under the contin- 
uance of favorable influences, a very considerable elevation 
of the negro race. It is our belief, moreover, that such 
improvement is to be wrought out very much through their 
relation to our own Southern States. Still, we know not 
that it is other than an unauthorized assumption to suppose 
that they can, under any combination of circumstances, ever 
be restored to the physical, intellectual, and social condition 
of the highest European standard. And hopeful as we are 
concerning the gradual elevation of the masses of mankind, 
of all varieties, under the great ameloriating agencies of 
Christianity and modern civilization, till this, and every 
other race shall attain the best standard of which it is 
susceptible, we have little expectation of their fully recover- 
ing the structural symmetry, cuticular texture, complexional 
beauty, and ornamental locks, which, in their pristine state, 
distinguished, we may believe, 

"Adam the goodliest man of men since born 
His sons, and fairest of her daughters Eve.'' 

But, however this may be, it is clear that observations 
are altogether too incomplete to authorize dogmatism 
either way in this incidental point. And it is still more 
obvious that even if negroes should in the future, however 
by favorable influences elevated in the human scale, always 
continue negroes, it will furnish no necessary proof that 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 119 

they always have been. They may have been developed 
downward, and yet never be allowed in all respects to 
redevelop upward. The possibilities of the future, apart 
from revealed sanctions, constitute however a mere spec- 
ulation, with which it is no appropriate concern of scien- 
tific investigation to amuse or perplex itself. Its proper 
sphere is the actual, and in that sphere the hypothesis of 
absolute permanence of type through all past time finds 
no support. Facts abundant, in the phenomena of vari- 
ation among lower animals, and in the history of human 
varieties, and even significant tokens in the early Egyptian 
monuments, array themselves invincibly against the notion 
of unvarying continuance of the white and black, and all 
other races, as they now are, from the very dawn of human 
existence. 

And nature, in reply to the interrogatory of science, 
returns a distinct negative to each branch of the unvarying 
primordial type proposition. 

Having thus scrutinized, as proposed, the main argu- 
ments adduced by the supporters of the diversity doctrine, 
and found them unsubstantial and delusive, w r e proceed 
briefly to present the chief considerations which satisfy us 
of the specific unity of the human family. Such consider- 
ations, in addition to many already incidentally adduced, 
are, first, affiliations of language; second, discernible pro- 
cesses of distribution ; third, physical, physiological, and 
psychological correspondences among men of all varieties ; 
and, fourth, the doctrines of the Bible. Our limits admit 
of the merest sketch of evidence under these several heads. 



120 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

The proof from affiliated language, in spite of extraor- 
dinary suggestions to the contrary thrown out by Agassiz 
and others, is really decisive of the question of the common 
origin of the tribes of our race, — it being plainly incred- 
ible, that, among the infinitely diversified combinations of 
sound of which the human organs are everywhere capable, 
systematic coincidences in the structure of words and 
sentences, among different people, should endlessly occur 
by mere accident. It is vain also to attribute this agree- 
ment to the natural tendencies of organs similarly con- 
structed. No unprejudiced man, in his senses, can be 
made to believe that while the Greek machinery for utter- 
ance evolved the word "aproq," to express what the 
English and American speaking apparatus denotes by 
"bread" and the Latin organs of sound suggested by 
"panis," all widely distinct, and especially the last utterly 
unlike the other two, the French mouth should have de- 
veloped, solely by the correspondence of its structure with 
that of the old Roman, the articulation "pain," for the 
identical thing. Every mind immediately discovers that 
the French word is really the Latin, adopted and slightly 
changed; and so in a thousand instances. 

The occurrence of a few such coincidences in any two 
tongues shows manifestly some connection between the 
people speaking them ; and the appearance of a great 
many proves a very close connection, as in the case of the 
Italian, French, etc., with the Latin. But, when, besides 
corresponding words, the very mode of arranging the 
elementary sounds to produce words is found coincident in 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 121 

two languages, and the method of varying words in ex- 
pressing the relations of things is discovered to be mainly 
the same, not only is a close connection between these 
nations indubitably proved, but it is distinctly shown that 
their two classes of utterance are pervaded by a common 
contrivance, and therefore emanated from one mental in- 
fluence, — that they are in fact parallel streams flowing from 
the same source. The radical consonantal arrangements 
so extensively prevailing, for instance in the Latin and 
Greek, and the diffused parallelism of their declensions 
and conjugations, constitute the most reliable historical 
documents concerning their common ancestry. So in like 
manner with the French and English. Such exactly agree- 
ing modes of expressing thought as " L'homme-de- 
guerre" and "The -man- of -war," pervading the two lan- 
guages, are but part of the family likeness transmitted from 
the same parentage. 

Thoroughly to explore the tongues of the earth is, then, 
the true way to determine the great question of origin, as 
a scientific question. But this is a laborious process, not 
to be pursued without untiring patience, accumulated efforts, 
and vast erudition. No wonder it is depreciated by the 
impatient, superficial, and unlearned theorists, claiming to 
be scientific, who can so easily substitute for it a few half- 
observed appearances, a crude hypothesis, a bold utter- 
ance, and an abundant amount of dogmatism and denun- 
ciation ; and by dint of defiant assertion palm it upon the 
prejudiced, the busy, and the credulous, as science. 

11 



122 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

" Languages," says Baron Humboldt, (Kosmos, vol. ii. 
p. 471,) "compared together, and considered as objects 
of the natural history of the mind, and when separated 
into families according to the analogies existing in their 
internal structure, have become a rich source of historical 
knowledge ; and this is probably one of the most brilliant 
results of modern study in the last sixty or seventy years. 
From the very fact of their being products of the intel- 
lectual force of mankind, they lead us, by means of the 
elements of their organism, into an obscure distance, un- 
reached by traditionary records. The comparative study 
of languages shows us that races now separated by vast 
tracts of land are allied together, and have migrated from 
one common primitive seat; it indicates the course and 
direction of all migrations, and, in tracing the leading 
epochs of development, recognizes, by means of the more 
or less changed structure of the language, in the perma- 
nence of certain forms, or in the more or less advanced 
distinction of the formative system, which has retained 
most nearly the language common to all who had migrated 
from the general seat of origin." 

11 The largest field for such investigations into the ancient 
condition of language, and consequently into the period 
when the whole family of mankind was, in the strict sense 
of the word, to be regarded as one living whole, presents 
itself in the long chain of Indo-Germanic languages, 
extending from the Ganges to the Iberian extremity of 
Europe, and from Sicily to the North Cape." 

"The same comparative study of languages leads us 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 123 

also to the native country of certain products, which from 
the earliest ages have constituted important objects of 
trade and barter. The Sanscrit names of genuine Indian 
products, as those of rice, cotton, spikenard, and sugar, 
have, as we find, passed into the language of the Greeks, 
and, to a certain extent, even into those of Shemitic 
origin." 

"From these considerations, and the examples by which 
they have been illustrated, the comparative study of lan- 
guages appears an important rational means of assistance 
by which scientific and genuinely philological investigation 
may lead to a generalization of views regarding the af- 
finity of races, and their conjectural extension in various 
directions from one common point of radiation." 

The processes thus indicated, originating in the saga- 
cious intellect of Leibnitz, have been since pressed forward, 
and especially within the last two generations, with amaz- 
ing industry and ability by the leading scientific linguists 
of the world. Adelung and Yater, Schlegel and Bopp, 
Rask and Guinon, William Yon Humboldt and Lepsius, 
Gyarmathi and Schott, Furst and Delitzch, Miiller and 
Biinsen, etc., and, most memorable of all, that unrivaled 
martyr to learning, already mentioned, Alexander Castren, 
"who, after his prodigious tour of exposure and labor in 
pursuit of linguistic knowledge, returned to his duties as 
professor at Helsingfors, to die, after he had given to the 
world but a few specimens of his rich treasures." (Blinsen's 
Christianity and Mankind, vol. ii. p. 274.) 

Some of the results reached by these thorough explorers, 



124 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

and attested by such sure witnesses, have been already 
referred to ; we add a few others of striking character. 

"The evidence of language," says Professor Max Miiller, 
(ibid.,) "is irrefragible, and it is the only evidence worth 
listening to, with regard to ante-historical periods. It 
would have been next to impossible to discover any traces 
of relationship between the swarthy nations of India and 
their conquerors, whether Alexander or Clive, but for the 
testimony borne by language. What authority would have 
been strong enough to persuade the Grecian army that 
their gods and their hero ancestors were the same as those 
of King Porus, or to convince the English soldier that the 
same blood was running in his veins and in those of the 
dark Bengalee? And yet there is not an English jury 
now-a-days, which, after examining the hoary documents 
of language, would reject the claim of a common descent 
and a legitimate relationship between Hindoo, Greek, and 
Teuton." 

But the results of such investigations extend very far 
beyond the obvious affiliations in the several branches of 
the great Iranian stock. 

"The heads," says Biinsen, (vol. iii. p. 172,) "of the 
critical Hebrew school, Gesenius and Ewald, had thrown 
out a hint that, by the reduction of the tri-literal Hebrew 
roots to bi-literal ones, (proposed already in the seven- 
teenth century,) we might find strong reason to suspect a 
radical affinity between Hebrew and Sanscrit. Klaproth 
had pronounced, without reserve, that it was so. And, in 
1838-40, two masters of the Hebrew tongue — Furst, of 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 125 

Leipsic, (himself a Jew,) and more especially Delitzch, of 
Halle — accepting the method adopted by Indo- Germanic 
scholars, maintained and exemplified the constant and 
undeniable analogy between Indo-Germanic and Sanscrit 

roots And Lepsius and Dr. Charles Meyer have 

established the fact beyond all doubt, that there exists an 
undeniable community of living roots between the two 
families. They have further shown that, in many in- 
stances, the Egyptian roots present the intermediate links 
between both, as well in words as in forms." 

From his own researches into the Babylonian, Egyptian, 
and other tongues, Biinsen adds, (ibid.) : — 

M If the Indo-European languages exhibit undeniable proof 
of the gradual extension of these races from the eastern 
part of Central Asia, the Shemitic tongues present no less 
striking evidences of their being derived from the western 
part of the primitive seat of mankind. The range of the 
Shemitic branch is less extended than that of the Iranian, 
but it forms a more compact and not less interesting mass. 
The Shemitic tribes never extended into Europe, except by 
temporary incursions. They have, however, not lost their 
ground in Asia, Armenia excepted, and have penetrated 
into Africa, at various epochs, even in the historical times, 
in which, assuredly, no traces of Japhetic origin are dis- 
cernible. It is a fact which can be philologically proved, 
that the Shemitic formation constitutes the ground-work of 
African languages, from the Mediterranean coast of Africa 
into the interior of that mysterious country even beyond 
the eauator, in an uninterrupted line." 

11* 



126 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

This remark may be extended through a statement, by 
William Yon Humboldt, of singular interest in connection 
with the Nigrito races of Polynesia and New Holland, 
already spoken of. 

"To judge correctly," he says, "of the negro races in 
their pure form, we must always commence with the inhab- 
itants of the great southern continent; as between these 
and the brown races no direct contact is conceivable, and., 
according to their present condition, it is difficult to con- 
ceive any kind even of indirect connection. The remark- 
able fact, however, still remains, that many words in the 
languages of these races, although we certainly possess 
only a few of them, bear an evident likeness to words of 
the South Sea Islands." 

The languages of the latter are, from critical examina- 
tion, classed by Miiller, Biinsen, etc., in that vast circle of 
non-Iranian and non-Shemitic dialects, to which they give 
the general name Turanian. This, it will be remembered, 
is the immense sweep of kindred families, to the investiga- 
tion of whose tongues Castren so heroically devoted him- 
self. 

Of this great assemblage, Miiller, after a most elaborate 
analysis, affirms: "Two nuclei may be distinguished, a 
Northern and a Southern ; and of these, still farther back, 
a coalescence in one common form. Here," he adds, 
(Biinsen, vol. iii.,) "where the differences between the Tura- 
nian languages cease, the first stamina of the ancient 
Shemitic and Arian are found to converge toward the same 
centre of life. Radicals applied to certain definite but 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 121 

material meanings in common by all Turanian dialects, 
belong to this primitive era, and some of them can even 
now be proved the common property of the Turanian, the 
Shemitic, and the Arian branches." 

Among the numerous dialects comprehended under the 
general term Turanian, spoken by more than a third of the 
human race, may be reckoned the Chinese, and cognate, so 
termed, monosyllabic tongues. The peculiarities which 
these present have been much dwelt upon by diversity 
authors, as supposed to offer insuperable difficulties in the 
way of scientific critical affiliation with other forms of hu- 
man speech. (See Mr. Maury's paper, on the classification 
of tongues, in Nott and Gliddon's Indigenous Races.) 
Nor have explorers holding different views been indisposed 
candidly to admit more or less of difficulty in those pecu- 
liarities. So late as 1847, Biinsen, in his celebrated paper 
of that year before the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, said : " The difficulties are immense. . . . 
Nor do we undertake to answer the question whether that 
wreck of the primitive language, that monument of inor- 
ganic structure, the Chinese, can be linked, by any scien- 
tific method, to the other families of human speech, and 
thus, directly or indirectly, connected with the great tripar- 
tite civilizing family of mankind, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. 
But we add, there is no scientific proof that it cannot. . . . 
There is a gap between that formation (Chinese) and all 
others, and that gap corresponds probably to that caused 
in the general development of the human race by great 
destructive floods, (we pause not to notice questions here 



128 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

suggested,) which separate the history of our race from its 
primordial origins." 

Later and fuller researches, however, exhibited in Biin- 
sen's more recent and important work, Christianity and 
Mankind, have removed some of the difficulties before 
admitted, and have shown undeniable bonds of affinity 
between the Chinese and cognate languages and the other 
tongues of the earth. (See Max Miiller's masterly exposi- 
tion of "the last results of Turanian researches," especially 
his chapter on the relation of the Tai to the Lohitic lan- 
guages, and their connection with the Bhotiya class and 
Chinese. Biinsen, vol. iii. pp. 390-402.) 

"As to the formal elements, or the grammatical growth 
of language," he maintains, "no difficulty exists in con- 
sidering the grammatical system of Sanscrit, the most per- 
fect of the Arian dialects, as the natural development of 
Chinese — an admission made even by those who are most 
opposed to generalizations in the science of languages." 

He further insists : " These two points comparative phi- 
lology has gained — 

"1. Nothing necessitates the admission of different in- 
dependent beginnings for the material elements of the 
Turanian, Shemitic, and Arian branches of speech; 
nay, it is possible even now to point out radicals which, 
under various changes and disguises, have been current 
in these three branches ever since their first separation. 

"2. Nothing necessitates the admission of different 
beginnings for the formal elements of the Turanian, 
Shemitic, and Arian branches of speech; and, though it 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 129 

is impossible to derive the Avian system of grammar 
from the Shemitic, or the Shemitic from the Turanian, 
we can perfectly understand how, either through individ- 
ual influences, or by the wear and tear of grammar in 
its own continuous working, the different systems of 
grammar of Asia and Europe may have been produced. 17 

"Translated into historical language," he continues, in 
accordance with the convictions of Humboldt, "these gram- 
matical conclusions establish the following facts: — 

"The first migration from the common centre of man- 
kind proceeded eastward, where the Asiatic language was 
arrested at the first stage of its growth, and where Chinese, 
as a broken link, presents to the present day a reflection 
of the earliest consolidation of human speech,' 7 etc., etc. 
(Ibid., pp. 479-480.) 

With these important facts and conclusions, Biinsen, 
by means of the abundant data furnished in Schoolcraft's 
elaborate collection, has been enabled, in the most un- 
doubting manner, to connect the dialects of the North 
American Indians. "The linguistic data," he declares, 
"thus famished, combined with the traditions and customs, 
and particularly with the system of mnemonic WTiting, 
(first revealed in Schoolcraft's work,) enable me to say 
that the Asiatic origin of all these tribes is as fully proved 
as the unity of family among themselves." 

Thus are all the languages of the earth, however at first 
view apparently dissociated and incongruous, traceable to 
one source ; and, by consequence, all human tribes have pro- 
ceeded from one centre and descended from one parentage. 



180 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

And the unity thus traced, as justly and eloquently re- 
marked by the copiously furnished author last quoted, "is 
not simply a physical, external one ; it is that of thought, 
wisdom, arts, science, and civilization. By facts still more 
conclusive than the succession of strata in geology, com- 
parative philology proves what our religious records pos- 
tulate — that the civilization of mankind is not a patch- work 
of incoherent fragments, not an inorganic complex of vari- 
ous courses of development, starting from numberless 
beginnings, flowing in isolated beds, and destined only to 
disappear in order to make room for other tribes running 
the same course in monotonous rotation. For beyond all 
other documents, there is preserved in language that sacred 
tradition of primeval thought and art which connects all 
the historical families of mankind, not only as brethren by 
descent, but each as the depository of a phasis of one and 
the same development. In language are deposited the 
primordial sparks of that celestial fire which, from a once 
bright centre of civilization, has streamed over the inhab- 
ited earth, and which now already forms a galaxy round 
the globe — a chain of light from pole to pole." (Vol. iv. p. 
112.) 

Immediately connected with these demonstrative utter- 
ances of scientific comparative philology, are the indica- 
tions of the same general truth furnished by the traceable 
processes of human distribution. The relation of many 
of the tongues of the earth to each other constitutes, as 
we have seen, a very sure guidance to some of the other- 
wise undiscoverable traces of paths along which tribes of 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 131 

men have trod, in wandering from their primitive Asiatic 
home to distant regions. There is much in the affiliation 
of dialects, and in the observed relative development of 
speech, to indicate, in the words of Baron Humboldt, "the 
course and direction of all migrations. " These, however, 
are not the only means by which man may be traced in his 
farthest rovings. 

There are highways on this globe, constructed by higher 
than human art, whose courses, though definite as a planet's 
path, have remained as undetected till mapped by modern 
skill, and that chiefly under the guidance of one of our 
distinguished countrymen, an American, and a Southerner. 
And those highways give tokens, engraved by a finger 
whose marks are equally ineffaceable and undeniable, of 
the human travelers they have conducted to remotest 
climes. 

The great streams that flow unceasingly through the 
ocean constitute such highways ; and the great atmospheric 
currents above the sea furnish an additional and unerring 
locomotive power, for transportation, more ancient than 
the human race. 

This is the testimony of Lieut. Maury, in reply to cer- 
tain queries proposed by Dr. Schoolcraft. Alluding in the 
first place to the use made by Colonel Hamilton Smith, in 
his "Natural History of the Human Species," of the Mexi- 
can legend of "seven caves" communicated by Montezuma 
to Cortez, in relation to a traditionary connection between 
the Aztec race and the nations of the Old World: — 

"The colonel had a stronger case than he imagined, in 



132 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

coDJecturing that the Chichimacs might have been Aleu- 
tians, and that 'caves,' if not denoting islands, might have 
referred to canoes. The Aleutians of the present day 
actually live in caves or subterranean apartments. They 
are the most bestial of the species, in their habits copying 
after the seal and the whale." 

"These islands grow no wood. For their canoes, fish- 
ing implements, and cave-hold utensils, the natives depend 
upon the drift-wood which is cast ashore, much of which 
is camphor wood. Another link in the chain, which is 
growing quite strong, of evidence which for years I have 
been seeking, in confirmation of a gulf stream, near there, 
and which runs from the shores of China over toward 
our Northwest coast." 

Next, in reply to the question whether the Pacific and 
Polynesian waters could have been navigated in early 
times: — 

" Yes ! if you had a supply of provisions, you could run 
down the trades on a log. 

"There is no part of the world where nature would 
tempt savage man more strongly to launch out upon the 
open sea, with his bark, however frail ; then, there is the 
island in the distance to attract and allure; and the next 
step would be to fit out an expedition. . . . The native 
finds a hollow log. This is split in two, and a dam made 
across either end with knead of clay. He puts in a few 
cocoa-nuts, a calabash of water, breaks a green branch thick 
with foliage, sticks it up as a sail, and goes before the wind 
at the rate of three or four miles the hour. 1 have seen 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 133 

them actually do this, their little fleets, like 'Birnam wood 
coming to Dunsinane,' by water. But by some mishap, 
in the course of time this frail bark misses the island 
or falls to leeward ; the only chance then is to submit to 
the wind and waves to go where they will bear. 

"But the South Sea Islander would soon get above 
vessels with clay bows and mud sterns. As fissures in 
bread-trays, in negro-cabins of the South, are sewed up 
with white-oak splits, so the Marquesas Islanders make 
large canoes out of little slats of wood sewed together with 
cords of cocoa-nut fibre, the holes being puttied up with 
clay. These canoes will sometimes hold twenty rowers." 

"In the Pacific, between 25° and 30° south, it is easy 
for such vessels to sail in any direction between north 
round by west to southwest; and north of the equator, 
to the 25th or 30th parallel, it is likewise easy for such 
rude vessels to sail in any course between northwest round 
by the west to south. It is difficult to get to the eastward 
within the trade-wind region." 

Again, in reply to the inquiry whether, before the inven- 
tion of the compass, long voyages were possible : — 

" Such chance voyages were not only possible, but more 
than probable. When we take into consideration the 
position of North America with regard to Asia, and of 
New Holland with regard to Africa, and with the winds 
and currents of the ocean, it would have been more re- 
markable that America should not have been peopled from 
Asia, or New Holland from Africa, than that they should 
have been." 

12 



134 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

"Captain Kay, of the whale-ship Superior, fished two 
years ago in Behring's Straits. He saw canoes going 
from one continent to the other. . . . Along the course of 
the ' Gulf Stream/ from the shores of China, already alluded 
to, westerly winds prevail ; and we have well-authenticated 
instances in which these two agents have brought Japanese 
mariners in disabled vessels to the coasts of America. " 

"In the Indian Ocean an immense surface of water is 
exposed to the heat of the torrid zone, without any escape, 
as it becomes expanded, but to the south. Accordingly 
we have here the genesis of another 'gulf stream,' which 
runs along the east coast of Africa, bearing to the south 
of New Holland." 

" There was then, in the early ages, the Island of Mada- 
gascar to invite the African out with his canoe, his raft, or 
more substantial vessel. There was this current to bear 
him along at first, at the rate of nearly, if not quite, one 
hundred miles a day, and by the time the current began to 
grow weak, it would have borne him into the region of 
westerly winds, which, with the aid of the current, would 
finally waft him to the southern shores of New Holland. 
Increasing and multiplying here, he would travel north to 
meet the sun, and in the course of time he would extend 
himself over to the other islands, as Papua and the like." 

"When we look at the Pacific, its islands, the winds and 
currents, and consider the facilities there that nature has 
provided for drifting savage man, with his rude implements 
of navigation, about, we shall see that there the induce- 
ments held out to him to try the sea are powerful. With 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 135 

the bread-fruit and the cocoa-nut, man's natural barrels 
there of beef and bread, and the calabash, his natural 
water-cask, he had all the stores for a long voyage already 
at hand." (Schoolcraft, vol. i. p. 23.) 

Upon the first part of this, and other particulars of like 
character, the learned American Archaeologist remarks: 
"Thus we have traditionary gleams of the foreign origin 
of the race of North American Indians. . . . They point 
directly to an Oriental origin. Such has from the first 
been inferred. At whatever point the investigation has 
been made, the eastern hemisphere has been found to con- 
tain the physical and mental prototypes of the race. 
Language, mythology, religious dogmas, the very style of 
architecture, and their calendar, as far as it is developed, 
point to that fruitful source of nationality and dispersion." 
{Ibid.) 

In relation to other points suggested by Maury, bearing 
upon the question of the diffusion alike of men and of the 
lower animals, much information is given by Lyell. We 
make room for only a single fact. "Kotzebue, when 
investigating the coral isles of Radak, and the eastern 
extremity of the Caroline Isles, became acquainted with 
a person by the name of Kadu, who was a native of Ulea, 
an isle fifteen hundred miles distant, from which he had 
been drifted with a party." (El. of Geol., vol. iii. p. 92.) 

Such are the paths along which population has been 
conducted to our globe's remotest extremity. Thus — 

" Wise to promote whatever end he means, 
God opens fruitful nature's various scenes." 



136 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

And thus has he conducted to every region children of 
Adam, and diffused 

"Soul, passion, intellect; till blood of man 
Through every artery of nature ran ; 
O'er eastern islands poured its quickening stream, 
Caught the warm crimson of the western beam ; 
Beneath the burning line made fountains start 
In the dry wilderness of Afric's heart; 
And through the torpid north, with genial heat ; 
Taught love's exhilarating pulse to beat; 
Till the great sun, in his perennial round, 
Man, of all climes, the restless native found. " 

This is not merely poetry; it is sound philosophy. And 
it opens at once the next branch of evidence respecting 
the family relationship between the most widely separated 
tribes of men; that presented in the mental phenomena 
and physical characteristics of every variety of human 
kind. 

On the latter and lower, but in some respects more ob- 
viously presented point, the most searching investigations, 
in spite of all the circumstantial diversities urged by a 
certain class of observers, have issued in what amounts in 
fact to a strict demonstration of human unity. 

Facts connected with the phenomena of hybridity ap- 
proach very closely this demonstrative character. Ques- 
tions, indeed, are raised respecting these phenomena, and 
assertions not a few most energetically advanced. But 
facts will yield neither to perplexed speculation nor to 
headlong boldness : still less, can they be expected to 
submit, when the challenging parties are themselves at 
issue. 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 137 

Dr. Yan Evrie and Dr. Nott, recent controversialists on 
this subject, agree in maintaining that mulattoes are strictly 
hybrids; but they differ quite widely in regard to the 
general laws of nature respecting hybrids. The latter 
contends that in the hybridity which takes place between 
proximate species, as he holds varieties of men to be, 
although the earlier generations appear more delicate, yet 
"prolificacy is unlimited." (Types, p. 316.) The former 
affirms, (Essay, p. 29,) with characteristic but unverified 
confidence, "the mulatto of the fourth generation is as 
sterile as the mule of the first." These opposite state- 
ments, which it is almost self-evident neither of the learned 
gentlemen could on his own side substantiate, they may be 
left to reconcile; meanwhile, the long-admitted and un- 
questionable fact remains a patent verity, that mixed races 
of men, as the Griquas of South Africa, descended from 
the Dutch and Hottentots; the Cafusos of Brazil, and 
similar mestizoes elsewhere, from negroes and Indians ; the 
Papuans of Xew Guinea, etc., from negroes and Malayans ; 
and the mulattoes and Creoles of the West Indies and of 
our own country, not only exist in great numbers, but, 
according to wide observation, continue, wherever circum- 
stances permit, rapidly to multiply. From our last census 
returns we find that "the mulattoes in the United States, 
numbering, in 1850, 405,751, are about one-eighth as 
numerous as the blacks, and the free mulattoes are more 
than half the number of free blacks." (Census Kept,, 
p. 82.) 

It is one thing then, and may serve a purpose, to speak 
12* 



133 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

of mulattoes as "mules," but it is altogether a different 
thing scientifically to establish their hybridity. And even 
if something approaching it could be proved, it would be 
nothing more than might be expected, under the wide 
deviation from the white standard, so early developed and 
so long perpetuated in the negro, and would be therefore 
no satisfactory evidence of specific diversity. But real 
hybridity in the case cannot be proved. The fact quoted 
from our last census is of itself decisive. But further : — 

"If we search the whole world," says Prichard, (Xat. 
Hist., p. 12,) "we shall probably not find one instance 
of an intermediate tribe produced between two distinct 
species, ascertained to be such." 

"I cannot share the opinion," says M. de Candolle, 
(Essai Elementaire, 8me partie,) "that between species 
of the same genera hybrid species may be found." 

"I have never yet seen a hybrid plant," says Mr. T. A. 
Knight, (Observations on Hybrids, p. 253,) "capable of 
affording offspring, which has been proved, with anything 
like satisfactory evidence, to have sprung from the origin- 
ally distinct species." 

"There is no satisfactory proof," says Lyell, (Elements 
of Geology, vol. iii. p. 14,) "that a single permanent species 
has ever been produced by hybridity." 

And Professor Wagner, of Germany, is said to have 
shown that the sterility of hybrid animals is generally 
secured by an organic impediment. 

It is plain, indeed, that such a law in nature is needed, 
toward preserving the order of the organized creation. 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 139 

Since, in the language of Prichard, "if hybrid races were 
produced and continued without impediment, the organ- 
ized world would soon present a scene of universal con- 
fusion." 

Facts, then, are all against the notion of mixed races 
among men being hybrids. They are but intermediate 
varieties. Physiologically, man is really proved to be one. 
This is the latest utterance of perhaps the master phys- 
iologist now living — Professor Owen. (Lect. before Brit. 
Association for Adv. Science, Liverpool, Sept. 1854.) 

"With regard to the number of known species of apes, 
it is not without interest to observe that, as the generic 
form of the quaclrumana approaches the bimanous order, 
they are represented by fewer species. The unity of the 
human species is demonstrated by the constancy of those 
osteological and dental characters brought to view in 
investigating the corresponding structural particulars in 
the higher quadrumana. Man is the sole species of his 
genus, the sole representative of his order, and, in reference 
both to the unity of the human species and to the fact of 
man being the latest as he is the highest of all animal 
forms upon our planet, the interpretation of God's works 
coincides with what has been revealed to us, as to our own 
origin and zoological relation, in his word." 

It is not, therefore, too much to say, in the words of 
Professor Miiller, " From a physiological point of view, we 
may speak of varieties of man, but no longer of races. 
Man is a species, created once, and divided into none of 
its varieties by specific distinctions. In fact, the common 



140 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

origin of the negro and of the Greek admits not of a 
rational doubt." 

The mental phenomena to which we have alluded, if 
furnishing proof less palpable to the senses, are, in their 
specific correspondences, when carefully examined, equally 
decisive of essential oneness in mankind. 

Yast as is the interval between the towering intellectual 
proportions of a Shakspeare, a Milton, a Bacon, a Newton, 
or, beyond these, of a Paul, and those of the groveling 
creatures known as Esquimaux or Fuegans, Hottentots or 
Guineans, there are not only countless links binding them 
to the same common kind, but certain great psychological 
features making manifest their family relationship. 

A ratiocinative and logical faculty marks man wherever 
he is found, and a creative genius varying with circum- 
stances. On every soil and beneath every sky is he char- 
acterized by the sense of responsibility which renders 
government possible, and binds him to the moral system 
of the universe. The outworking, too, of this element of 
his being, in some form of religious belief and custom, is 
coterminous with his diffusion. 

Against this it is vain to urge, as indicating specific 
difference, the favorite allegation of diversity advocates, 
that the brain of the Indian, etc., is comparatively small, 
and that no instance can be adduced of a negro who has 
made high attainments in literature or philosophy. 

Dr. Morton himself teaches, in an extract already given, 
that the Indian brain has, by peculiar habit of exercise, 
been in some tribes considerably enlarged. A fact, indeed, 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 141 

falling in with the commonly observed tendency of all hu- 
man tissues to enlargement, within moderate limits, through 
a given process of action. Size of brain, however, at any 
rate, is no final test of mind. The quality of material 
must surely be quite as important as its quantity. Dr. 
Wyman testifies that other heads in Boston were notori- 
ously larger than Daniel Webster's. 

To demand instances of superior intellect among races 
long degraded is, then, plainly unreasonable, and amounts 
in truth to a begging of the question, by the opponents of 
unity. Can they furnish such instances among the forty or 
fifty millions of native Sclavonian serfs spread over the 
vast plains of European Russia ? 

Instances can certainly be adduced, though they are 
rare, of pure-blooded negroes making very considerable 
attainments in high learning. J. H. B. Latrobe, Esq., of 
Baltimore, has described one whom he knew, who became 
a quite profound mathematician. The census returns also 
exhibit some singular statistics, as to the education and 
employment of many negroes, alike in New Orleans and 
New York. And the sound judgment, good feelings, and 
steady principle which observant masters so often discover 
in their well-trained servants, certainly speak favorably of 
their position in the extended scale of humanity. Our 
laws themselves, moreover, by assuming the rational and 
responsible nature of the negro, and regulating him by 
such serious sanctions, bear testimony incontestible to a 
universal conviction on the subject. 

The truth unquestionably is, that while habit and other 



142 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

causes have greatly modified and extensively degraded the 
one mental as well as the one bodily constitution of the 
greater part of mankind, not only are the lowest tribes im- 
provable in the latter respect as well as in the former, but 
the mind, in its most degraded state, by unmistakable 
movements, vindicates its high connections. How strik- 
ingly does the emotional nature of man everywhere respond 
to the stroke of grief or the touch of delight ! Smiles 
and tears, laughter and groans, may be witnessed equally 
in the hovel and the palace, in the ice-burrow of the oil- 
fed Samoied and the star-canopied sand-home of the half- 
starved Bushman. And there is something in this single fact 
more convincing than whole volumes of materialistic spec- 
ulation. The great poet of mankind has fitly celebrated, 
in words that can never die, this instinctive demonstration 
of the heart — 

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 

To this entire argument from nature, conclusive as it is, 
the Bible sets the seal of revealed verity. It not only 
affirms, in plainest terms, that God "hath made of one 
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
earth," (Acts, xvii. 26,) but it traces them down from one 
created pair, and one preserved household. It not only 
makes known, as its supreme, all-comprehending disclosure, 
one "Son of man," at once the "Second Adam," and "the 
Lord from heaven," mysteriously accomplishing a great 
scheme of mediation for mankind, but it addresses its en- 
couragements and admonitions, its precepts and promises, 



THE HUMAN FAMILY. 143 

with undiscriminating benignity, and, with universal com- 
prehensiveness, commands them to be conveyed to every 
variety and every grade of human creatures — as constitut- 
ing one great brotherhood, children of one vast family. So 
thoroughly, indeed, is the doctrine of one actual blood rela- 
tionship between all human beings interwoven with the high- 
est announcements and most practical inculcations of revela- 
tion, that it must be pronounced impracticable to reject the 
one and retain the other. It certainly is not possible to 
admit ordinary fairness, far less inviolable veracity, in the 
fundamental lessons of Scripture, and yet reject their uni- 
form teaching concerning the co-ordinate relations of men 
toward each other, and to their common Father and one 
Mediator. 

Accordingly, we find the most frivolous air of levity, the 
bitterest tone of mockery, and the fiercest spirit of hos- 
tility directed against the belief of anything supernatural 
in the Bible, associated with the diversity theory. At the 
same time, with strange inconsistency, the attempt is made 
to represent the issue, so far as revelation is concerned, as 
a mere question of interpretation, like those involved in 
the solution of astronomical and geological facts, scrip- 
turally described under their phenomenal instead of their 
scientific relations. 

This alternative is prudently urged by some of the more 
considerate claimants of diversity, and it is even in part 
mingled by others with their dire denunciations. But it 
cannot be admitted. Man, his relations, his duties, his 
prospects, his origin, and his destiny, constitute the essen- 



144 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tial, the all-pervading topic of revelation. And there is 
no interpretation that can change these in the manner pro- 
posed, without rending to its base the whole fabric and 
scattering to the winds its dishonored fragments. 

In the Bible, as in common parlance, there is no neces- 
sary connection between incidental mention of natural 
events, according to their appearances, and the scientific 
realities of the case. Not so, however, with its account of 
the position and relations of the human family. If its his- 
torical, preceptive, and spiritual exhibitions, on this ground 
so distinctly conveyed, be not reliable, it is discredited 
throughout. There is, in fact, nothing left to credit. 

Could science necessitate such interpretation, it would 
really prove Christianity a fable, and revelation an impos- 
ture; Bacon a dupe, Newton a driveler, and the sober 
judgment of the Christian world an insane infatuation or a 
childish delusion. 

Of all this, however, there is, as we have seen, happily 
not the remotest possibility. Science really speaks here, as 
everywhere, in harmony with Scripture. And truth, now 
as heretofore, is found like its Author, One. 



DISCUSSION III. 

THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 

The era of our world's creation is a question, in our 
time, by the progress of knowledge, invested with an inter- 
est which it has not heretofore possessed. Geological sci- 
ence has now reached a position from which it claims to 
pronounce with confidence, respecting the prevalent time- 
interpretations of Genesis i., that they cannot be true. 
And the enlightened Christian student, at once trustful 
toward genuine science, as the heaven-lit lamp by whose ra- 
diance human reason is to trace in nature the orderings of 
an All-perfect mind ; and reliant on Scripture, as attested 
divine revelation, full of all that is most precious for man- 
kind, finds himself constrained to review those interpreta- 
tions. He remembers that the doctors of Salamanca, 
however much in earnest, were equally in error, when they 
urged their view of certain expressions in the Bible, 
against the geography of Columbus; and that vastly 
wide of the truth was that infallible tribunal, which so 
grievously condemned the immortal old Tuscan and his 
grand astronomical discovery, as at war with what they 
pronounced the meaning of the sacred records. Nor had 
the divine Author of the Holy Book committed it, he is 
well persuaded, to a false astronomy, though the learned 
Turretin and other Protestant theologians could find in such 

13 (145) 



146 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

passages as Ecclesiastes, i. 5, "The sun also ariseth, and 
the sun goeth down," and Psalm xciii. 1, " The world 
also is established that it cannot be moved," what was to 
them complete disproof of the Copernican system. 

Of the evils occasioned by errors of this kind, the con- 
siderate inquirer is well aware. How they prejudice men 
of mere science against the Bible, and men of exclusive 
piety against science ; and furnish the excuse of perplex- 
ity to the uninformed and indifferent on either side. To 
guard against such harm, therefore, he deems a duty of 
supreme importance. Hence, in the great question, now 
pending between the record of creation as read from the 
rocks and that given in Genesis, as commonly understood, 
he regards it as a serious obligation to trace, if possible, 
the whole truth, that its harmony may be discerned, and 
its excellence vindicated. What, then, the monumental 
masses beneath his feet, freely and fairly examined, and 
what the inspired narrative, thoroughly studied, really 
do teach, severally and unitedly, respecting the antiquity 
of our world, and the course of its pre-Adamite changes, 
becomes to him an inquiry of deep significancy. 

The very nature and history of the question at once sat- 
isfy him that its adequate solution is not to be reached by 
any superficial views, hasty conclusions, vague generaliza- 
tions, or arrogant dicta as to the meaning of Scripture, 
or of the rocky archives of the world. A faithful and 
large induction is, he well knows, the only key that can 
open the secrets of the earth's primeval history. Every- 
thing short of this, therefore, he promptly rejects. The 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 147 

Scripture language, he also sees, must be phenomenal, in 
order to be true always and for all men, since the great 
appearances appeal to all senses alike, while philosophic 
expression must vary with degree of culture ; yet so con- 
structed must that language at the same time be, he can- 
not but judge, since truth cannot be at war with truth, as 
essentially to violate no ultimate disclosure of science. To 
trace under the phenomenal from this deeper construction, 
so as to find the true meaning, as evinced in its being 
every way consistent, is a task not to be performed, he is 
sure, by an imperfect, unfurnished, or fanciful mind. From 
such guidance he instinctively turns in seeking the truth. 
He sees the largest, freest, best furnished men mainly 
agreed respecting the rank and conclusions of geological 
science. The Cuviers and Brogniarts, the Chalmerses and 
Pye Smiths, the Bucklands and Lyells, the Sedgwicks and 
Murchesons, the Mantells, Sillimans, Agassizes, and Hugh 
Millers, most of them equally eminent as Christians and as 
explorers of natural truth. Individuals of less calibre and 
attainments, he finds, either admitting their own ignorance 
while depreciating geology, or exhibiting in extravagant 
schemes of reconciliation between it and assumed meanings 
of Scripture, strange deficiency of knowledge and judg- 
ment. To the dicta of these, however positive, his mind 
cannot satisfactorily yield. He is obliged to look for some- 
thing more clearly and consistently adequate. And the 
question recurs with redoubled force, What is true on the 
subject ? What is the consistent and reliable explanation 
of the petrified and of the inspired documents ? 



143 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

The simple answer is, in our judgment, contained in the 
period-day reading of Genesis i. We believe that the six 
periods (Heb. Toms) of the creative history, are really in- 
tended to be read not as "days" but as "ages." This 
reading is, we are satisfied, beyond comparison, most accord- 
ant with the entire range of facts that have been elicited 
from the monumental records within the earth, and with 
the structure of the sacred history, as well as with striking 
intimations in other parts of the Bible. Reasons for this 
judgment we shall briefly give, using, as occasion requires, 
some of the best authorities on both branches of the argu- 
ment, the biblical and the scientific. 

The question is not only of grave importance as con- 
nected with a supposed issue between the scientific and the 
scriptural chronology of creation, but it is suggestive of 
some very curious facts in the history of associated theo- 
logical and geological opinion. 

The rigidly literal mode of Scripture interpretation, 
already referred to, by which the grand ideas of Columbus 
and of Galileo were in their day opposed, has, by not a 
few, and up to a date quite recent, been insisted on, in 
regard to geology. All animal forms, and their rock-en- 
tombed remains or effigies, are, by this class of judges, 
pertinaciously referred to an origin only a day or two 
ante-dating that of man. And our whole mundane system 
is held, under the same principles of construction, to be 
only of about the age of the human race; that is, some 
six thousand years, or a few decades of centuries more. 
Here one supposition is, of course, that multitudes of the 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 149 

fossil forms were original creations. That the rocks con- 
taining them were simply thus called into being, by an 
instantaneous divine fiat. But a wild assumption of thi3 
nature, without a particle of support in Scripture or 
reason, setting aside the whole observed order of Nature 
and Providence, and frustrating forever all rational inves- 
tigation, were now scarcely worthy of mention. Seriously 
to oppose it were like arguing against the fancies of a 
patient in delirium. An alternative hypothesis, on this 
chronological plan, refers all the phenomena of strata and 
fossils directly or indirectly to the deluge, however ration- 
ally inexplicable they may be on such grounds, nay, by the 
clearest induction absolutely discrediting any such ex- 
planation. Even the learned Kirby could be so imbued 
with the infatuation of this kind of scriptural application 
as to quote Ps. xliv. 19, "Thou hast sore broken us in the 
place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of 
death, 11 in proof of the existence now, of some subter- 
ranean home where multitudes yet survive of those mon- 
strous saurians, specimens of which, in skeleton, have been 
so abundantly discovered in certain ancient formations! 
A mode like this of dealing with the dignified wisdom of 
recorded Revelation is really so unworthy of a sound and 
reverential mind, that we cannot but experience in the 
contemplation of it a painful sense of human weakness. 

The once favorite idea of this class of constructionists, 
that all the thousand traces of ancient submergence under 
water, observed all over the globe, were to be referred 
directly to the deluge, has become at the present day so 

13* 



150 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

absolutely untenable in the light of abundant facts, as to 
be given up, we believe, on all hands. But a modified 
form of the theory is still held, the deluge being sup- 
posed indirectly to explain the facts of geology. The 
hypothesis is, that between the dates of creation and of 
the flood, vast accumulations of sediment were borne from 
time to time by streams and inundations, from the land 
into the sea; and that the upheaval of all this, at the 
time of the deluge, and the corresponding subsidence of 
what had been the land, buried all that had previously 
been occupied by terrestrial creatures, and provided, as 
their home from that date, the variously compounded sur- 
face over which the antediluvian sea had rolled. But this 
indirect diluvial hypothesis, though in some respects more 
plausible than that once prevalent, which supposed the 
mere passage of the Noachian waters over the continents 
to have left all the aqueous traces noticed by geologists, is 
in fact not more credible, in the light of modern discovery; 
while it is directly at war with certain historical details of 
the Scripture itself. In Genesis ii. 10-14, we read of the 
rivers which watered Eden. And the continued existence 
of two at least of them, the Hiddekel or Tigris, and the 
Euphrates, to this day, fully disproves the imagined sub- 
sidence of that part of the earth. Geological facts, which 
we shall incidentally exhibit, will be found even more 
thoroughly to discredit this theory. 

Here, however, we meet a prejudice by which good 
and otherwise well-informed men are, on this subject, alto- 
gether blinded. Without having fairly examined the case, 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 151 

they insist that what is claimed for geology as a science 
cannot be admitted. That it is merely a crude mass of 
speculations, and not a coherent system of results, carefully 
reached by a large induction of facts. "We deny their 
facts," say these opponents of the scientific geologists. 
"Grant them their facts, and of course they will make 
good their theory." Grant them their facts! A con- 
cession, truly, from persons who almost boast that they 
know little or nothing of the subject! Deny their facts, 
indeed! The blind obstinately persisting to all around 
them, "we believe nothing you allege about the sun. No 
doubt if we admit your facts, you can make good your 
solar theory." Something requiring a much stronger 
characteristic designation than "unreasonableness," is evi- 
dent here. How quickly would these worthy but prejudiced 
deniers of authenticated truth perceive, and how deeply 
feel, the weakness and unworthiness of a course the counter- 
part of their own, though in relations more solemn, were 
unbelievers to reply to their Christian appeals, "we deny 
your facts," and then refuse candidly to examine the 
evidences by which they are authenticated ! 

Even, then, if none of the more important geological 
facts were patent to our own eyes, if. we were simply 
dependent upon the testimony of such men as Lyell, and 
Humboldt, and Miller, as to the particulars traced by 
themselves in the strata of the earth, — just as the vast 
majority of even the cultivated are dependent on the 
Keplers and Herschels for the details of astronomic ob- 
servations, — it were most unreasonable, and at variance with 



152 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

all the sound principles of evidence for which we in other 
things contend, for us to talk about denying their facts. 
Cautious and sagacious men, whose well-disciplined facul- 
ties have through long years been devoted to a minute, 
methodical, and extensive examination of the soils and 
rocks, caves and cliffs, mines and mountains, yet explored 
on the globe, may surely be believed capable of describing 
what they have discovered, and what they really know in 
the case. And when we are certain that, whatever their 
scientific enthusiasm, they have, for the most part, no con- 
ceivable motive for misrepresenting appearances or per- 
verting truth, it would really seem something worse than 
folly to say, "we deny your facts." 

But, as in the case of controlling truths of astronomy, 
which are sufficiently obvious to all intelligent and ob- 
servant minds to furnish a basis of undoubting confidence 
in the testimony, borne by accomplished explorers of the 
heavens, concerning the wonderful results they have veri- 
fied, — so facts, the most striking and convincing, in the 
structure of our earth's crust, are so commonly noticeable, 
as not only to claim the attention of all reasonable men, 
but to furnish a secure basis for proper reliance upon the 
achievements of able and faithful investigations in this 
department of research. 

The truth is, almost every man may discover for him- 
self, alike in great utterances of the Bible, and in strange 
tokens everywhere presented by the earth's strata, much 
more than enough to discredit every form of the six-thou- 
sand-year hypothesis. And this is one of the instances in 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 153 

which liberal inquiry has done essential service to the one 
cause of truth, by manifesting the grand harmonies be- 
tween Nature and Revelation. 

The Bible, in not a few passages, indicates, as im- 
pressively as do the monumental rocks themselves, that the 
earth is incalculably older than the human race. In Psalm 
xc, entitled in our version, "a Prayer of Moses, the man 
of God," we read: "Before the mountains were brought 
forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 
even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Here 
the inspired writer, laboring apparently with the idea of 
boundless past duration, expressed by the phrase "from 
everlasting to everlasting," introduces, as an aid to the 
mighty conception, the period since the mountains were 
brought forth and the earth and the world were formed. 
Its very introduction, by way of comparison, for such a 
purpose, conveys, perhaps more strikingly than any form 
of statement could have done, his own impression of the 
immensity of that period. Still more significant, if pos- 
sible, to the same effect, is the remarkable personal address 
of "Wisdom," in Prov. viii. 22-30: "The Lord possessed 
me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. 
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever 
the earth was. When there were no depths I was brought 
forth ; when there were no fountains abounding with water. 
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I 
brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, 
nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 
When he prepared the heavens, I was there ; when he set 



154 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

a compass upon the face of the depth; when he established 
the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of 
the deep ; when he gave the sea his decree, that the waters 
should not pass his commandment ; when he appointed the 
foundations of the earth ; then I was by him, as one brought 
up with him." Here the highest descriptive power seems 
taxed to the utmost in carrying the mind back toward the 
era of the going forth of creative wisdom. And the period 
since our planet was called into being is again employed, 
as, by its vastness, the only fit term of comparison in such 
an estimate. 

Intimations like these are not rare, and they seem to 
render altogether insignificant, under the mere aspect of 
extent, the past term of human existence, in the great 
chronology of creation. 

On that vast chronological scale there are, as we have 
intimated, natural marks even more specific and not less 
impressive. So various are the aspects in which these 
may be exhibited, that the chief difficulty in offering 
them to view, within a moderate space, is so to group 
them as that some adequate effect on the mind may be 
produced. We select, however, a mode suggested by ob- 
jects that meet the eye at one of the most interesting spots 
on the globe. 

The intelligent observer who is permitted to feast his 
higher -being on the grand scenes of Niagara, finds his 
mind wondrously impressed, and borne on to great 
thoughts, by the sublimities of time no less than by those 
of dimension and of power. He cannot, indeed, address 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 155 

the mighty torrent, in words so beautifully applied to the 

hoary ocean it hastens to meet : — 

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; 
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now;" 

for time has furrowed there a thousand seams. But the 
very marks so indelibly registered speak of ages rolled 
away, no less surely than does the tracery beneath whitened 
locks reveal the ravages of threescore years and ten. 

There is the yawning chasm, in rock exceedingly hard, 
hundreds of feet in depth, and extending in length not less 
than eight miles; and there are the recent ruins of the 
slowly-receding wall, which tell of the process by which 
the enormous scooping has been effected. And when the 
agency and its observed results are compared with the 
total achievement, the period for such wear and tear is 
found really to baffle calculation. 

But there are, at this instructive spot, traces of a chro- 
nology that was already inconceivably old when the bosom 
of Erie was laid bare, and the waters of that emerald cur- 
rent began to cut a passage through the limestone. The 
attentive visitor finds imbedded in that rock numberless 
effigies of creatures that once tenanted the waters of a free 
ocean ; beings that in their time, longer or shorter, passed 
through the various stages of sentient existence which we 
observe to characterize animated forms. And their fossils, 
thus brought to light, tell the simple story of ancient 
vicissitude, and unregistered ages. They make known, not 
only the extended lifetime of such creatures, but the 
gradual advance of calcareous deposit in which those 



156 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

denizens of the deep were entangled and entombed, at all 
depths, through a range of more than hundreds of feet. 
They speak of the enormous pressure which could convert 
so immense an accumulation of mud into rock of hardest 
texture. And then, their elevation to the light of day, 
and their final exhibition to human eyes, tell of those un- 
known times of internal throe and progressive upheaval, 
which eventuated in rolling elsewhere the briny waves, for 
other service, and establishing the conditions under which 
lake and cataract have been since performing their part in 
the magnificent phenomena of nature. 

But immensely distant as is the past age to which these 
facts and these inductions have borne the thoughtful ob- 
server, he is not permitted to stop there. Tokens are at 
hand, apart from the special character of the stone, and 
supposing it of a kind elsewhere prodigiously developed in 
connection with such indications, of an earlier and pro- 
tracted period, claiming his attention. Issuing with the 
jet of a cool and gentle stream from a fissure in the rock, 
near the margin of the Canadian bank, and on its upper 
reach, he finds a ceaseless current of inflammable gas, pre- 
cisely analogous to that which modern skill has educed from 
coal and bitumen for the illumination of our cities. Fol- 
lowing, then, this current of combustible air, as Theseus the 
thread of Ariadne, he treads securely the hidden pathway 
along which that subtle fluid has traveled, till, far beneath 
the tombs of ages, over which the mighty waterfall forever 
reverberates, he enters a world of wonders, incalculab]y 
more ancient than all he has left behind. Here is before 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 157 

him one of the vast storehouses in which compact fuel for 
unborn generations has, for countless centuries, been piled 
away, in masses well-nigh immeasurable. And these 
masses bear a registry of events that transpired long before 
depths were opened there for the ocean, in which those crea- 
tures were born, lived, died, and were put away in marble, 
whose history tells so much of the ages that preceded the 
beginning of the cataract's evasive power. Here he reads 
of a vegetation that, at an epoch fancy herself reaches only 
on tired wing, burdened the warm and steaming earth, — a 
vegetation characterized by gigantic proportions and ex- 
haustless abundance, such as no soil or climate belonging 
to these later times, not even the nutritive alluvium of the 
Amazon under the stimulating blaze of an equatorial sun, 
can parallel. Here he finds recorded notices, not only 
of the foundation of fertile land already provided for 
the matted roots of great tree-ferns and greater forest- 
pines, and of the heated, misty air that ministered to their 
luxuriance, but also of the flood-seasons, which tore these 
mighty growths from their stations, and bore them onward 
to some great estuary, and laid them there in vast heaps, 
to be heavily covered, in the progress of centuries, by sedi- 
ment derived from adjacent shores, and thus be preserved 
under conditions preventive of wasteful decomposition, but 
admitting such change of elements as might, in an ex- 
tended period, convert fibrous into quasi-mineral fuel. 
The same registry sketches for him an outline of other 
events, succeeding these in series that years cannot meas- 
ure, ere yet preparation was made for that sea in which 

14 



158 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the great formation was deposited which now constitutes 
the bed and barrier of the splendid cascade ; movements 
in the frame-work of the globe, convulsive perhaps, like 
those which yet at times cause a continent to tremble ; or 
gradual, like those which are in our day slowly but surely 
lifting the coast of Norway and depressing that of Green- 
land; alternate heavings and sinkings, as it were, of the 
bosom of our "Alma Mater;" beatings of her vital pulse; 
throbbings of her mighty heart. Thus at length the great 
sea-cavity is adjusted, above the storehouse of future 
flame, where may settle the wafer-layers of that calcareous 
paste, which after-generations of an uncounted age look 
upon as enormous piles of imperishable rock. 

Thus do the stupendous gorge, the mighty masses of 
fossil-marked stone, and the carbureted exhalation of "the 
burning spring," to one but moderately acquainted with 
the authenticated and generalized facts of geology, and 
visiting this unrivaled locality, speak, with a distinctness 
that can scarcely be mistaken, of the long ages registered 
in the carboniferous formation, and of those succeeding 
periods of animated tribes, sedimentary deposit, petrifying 
process, subsequent upheaval, and prolonged erosion, evi- 
dences of which, in other places, have been so often traced 
by sagacious observers.* 



* In principle this time-argument is strictly true. In fact it is 
true only by accommodation. The Niagara rock belongs not, as 
supposed in our illustration, and as for any known physical reason 
to the contrary it might have done, to a formation above, and 
i~ewer than the great coal deposits, but to a member of the lower 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 159 

That the conclusions thus grouped may be seen to be 
altogether different from fanciful speculations, some of the 
evidences substantiating the main points may be briefly 
brought to notice. 

Great grooves, channeled, like the lower Niagara bed, 
in hardest rock, may be seen marking some part of the 
course of almost all large rivers. And the ruins thus ap- 
propriated by the waters, and borne onward in their flow, 
are found, in many cases, to be gradually packed away in 
alluvial accumulations, of which the deltas of the Missis- 
sippi, the Ganges, and the Nile are well-known instances. 
Now, of these accumulations, there are some tokens that, 
in a general way, mark the rate of increase. Such are 
certain fixed objects, connected with the outlet of the 
Egyptian stream, to which the ancient and the modern 
condition of the delta may be referred. The whole term 
of these deposits is, by such criteria, found to reach very 
far back of our historical period. 

But above the river beds lie terraces of diversified con- 
figuration, composed of those outspread heaps of soil, sand, 
clay, and gravel, that so generally constitute the terrestrial 
surface on which we tread, and which, when laid open by 
some natural or artificial cut, we find for the most part to 
consist of adjusted layers, evidently deposited in succession, 
at a remote date, from water in which, from time to time, 
they were borne. This general process was manifestly long 

and older vast Silurian system. So that the carbureted gas 
there appearing must, in all likelihood, be referred to some very 
partial and exceptional store of bituminous matter. 



160 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

anterior to that of the river alluvium. Its greatly higher 
antiquity is indicated, not only by all the circumstances of 
position, but by the enormous extent of the beds, as ascer- 
tained, in some cases, by boring and by the evidence which 
the pebbles furnish of prolonged attrition previous to 
burial. Already, then, we are here conducted, probably, 
far beyond the human era. (See in the " Smithsonian Con- 
tributions to Knowledge," vol. ix., 1851, an important 
paper, by Professor Hitchcock, on " Surface Geology.") 

Now, however, additional marks of age claim atten- 
tion. Indurated strata, marked by perfectly definite and 
characteristic peculiarities, present themselves to notice. 
They are found everywhere to constitute a vast frame- 
work of variously-textured rock, sometimes underlying 
plains, sometimes swelling into hills, sometimes piled in 
huge mountain-ridges, or shooting up into towering pin- 
nacles. This rocky frame of our world has also been, 
by nature and art, in many places exposed to observa- 
tion. And it is proved to consist, not of one jumbled 
mass, but of very distinct layers or beds of different kinds, 
and sometimes of immense thickness, lying one above 
another, in a regular order, ascertained to be mainly the 
same all over the globe, and reaching down to prodigious 
depths. In no one place, it is true, have many of these 
layers been exposed to view at once. Nor has any natural 
chasm or artificial cut penetrated at all near the depth to 
which these strata may, by other means, be traced. And yet, 
tilted up as the strata are, by violent heavings from within, 
especially in the neighborhood of mountains, one may be 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 



161 



seen showing itself at a considerable distance behind and 
under another, as, in a pile of books, one may rest on 




another. And although a, 6, c, and d may not be all seen 
at one view, yet c being found to rest on d, whenever they 
occur together, b on c, and a on b, the actual order of the 
whole is known. 

By a great number of observations, over a vast extent 
of the earth, the relations of upper and lower strata have 
thus been ascertained, and designated in about this order 
downward: 1, Alluvium and diluvium or drift; 2, ter- 
tiary series, a partially indurated system reaching down as 
low as the chalk; 3, secondary, from the chalk, through 
the oolite, to the new red sandstone ; 4, paleozoic, from 
the coal-beds to the slates. And while the uppermost 
layers of rock give tokens of an antiquity greatly exceed- 
ing that of the unindurated beds overlying them, those 
that are lower furnish abundant evidences of still greater 
age, in proportion as they are farther down. 

Although no human search has yet reached into the 
earth half a mile below the surface of the sea, yet these 
various rocky formations may be traced, by methods well- 
nigh as reliable as those of astronomy, to their profoundest 
depths. London, for example, rests on a great bed of clay, 

belonging to the class of accumulations designated the 

4* 



162 



SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 



tertiary system; but, underlying that clay is found, by 
repeated borings, at depths from 200 to 600 feet, the 
remarkable chalk concretion which, at certain points on 
the north and west of the great metropolis, appears at the 
surface, and again on the south rises into the Surrey hills. 
Now, supposing the dip of the chalk strata to be accu- 
rately ascertained at both the northern and southern points 
of emergence, and the distance between these points to be 
known, it is obvious that data will be possessed for calcu- 
lating, with trustworthy precision, the greatest depression 
of the chalk basin. It is a case of simple trigonometry. 




The distance a b being known, and the angles of depres- 
sion at a and b, to find c d. It will also be seen, from this 
example, not only how the continuity of a formation is 
proved by its reappearance, but how a measurement of its 
edge b e, at the surface, is an approximate criterion of its 
lowest thickness d f. The thickness of the chalk is, by 
such process, as well as by measurements in some cases 
more direct, found to be about 1000 feet. 

Estimates of this kind may be, and have been, applied to 
the vast oolitic and liassic formation found to underlie the 
chalk in the London basin ; and equally well to the saliferous 
or later red sandstone strata, on which the lias rests, and to 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 



163 



the great coal deposits below the saliferous sandstone. Of 
these last, says Baron Humboldt, (Kosmos, vol. i. p. 158,) u I 
have found, after repeated examinations, that the lowest coal- 
stratum which is known in the vicinity of Puttweiler, near 
Bettingen, northeast of Saarlouis, must descend to depths 
of 20,000 to 22,000 feet below the level of the sea." Un- 
der the coal lies the old red sandstone. And beneath that 
the great Silurian limestone beds, lower than which again 
are the slates and gneiss. Last of all, the original granite 
is reached, at a total depth of perhaps as far below the 
lowest coal, as that is beneath the surface. Thus the 
strata may be measured to a depth of from eight to ten 
miles. And gradually formed, as they obviously were, 
who shall measure the enormous periods employed in their 
production ? 

A general idea of the whole may be gotten from a sim- 
ple diagram. 



Tertiary 




v '111 



Besides the unmeasurable ages indicated for the deposi- 
tion of the whole series of sedimentary strata, there is that 
known in connection with the granite itself and its asso- 



164 SCIENCE A WITNESS TOR THE BIBLE. 

ciated so-called plutonic rocks, which carries the mind 
even farther toward the trackless past. Repeated borings 
into the earth, to from 500 to 2000 feet, reveal the fact, 
that there is a rise of temperature within, at the rate of 
about 1° Fah., for every 54 feet of perpendicular descent. 
(Kosmos, iv. p. 173.) Eight miles down, then, a glowing 
heat must exist. This indication falls in with several other 
important facts. First, the oblateness of the earth — its 
polar compression and equatorial protrusion — proving 
that, at some age, it must have been in a fluid condition, 
susceptible of receiving form under the operation of cen- 
trifugal force; second, its moderate aggregate density — 
ascertained by carefully observing its attractive power 
in comparison with that of mountain masses, etc. — only 
about five and a half times that of water, (ibid., p. 32,) 
indicating some internal repulsive energy counteracting 
the immense condensation which, otherwise, gravity would 
seem to necessitate ; and third, the circumstance that the 
scoriae from furnaces, and similar products furnished by 
chemists, as the result of fusion, often exhibit the very 
minerals which compose the original rocks. Such facts, 
together with the peculiar crystalline structure of the gran- 
itic mass, enforce the conclusion, that that universally un- 
derlying support of all other rocks, is, itself, but the slowly 
cooled crust of a once molten world. Immense, indeed, 
under existing laws of heat, must have been the time em- 
ployed in such reduction of temperature. 

Thus, by a regular but general and simple series of in- 
ductions, are we carried irresistibly backward, from the 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 165 

order of things now existing, through vast periods of 
formative change in the earth, to that unknown date, too 
remote for the most adventurous surmise, when all was 
" without form and void." 

Another class of facts, however, now comes into view, 
connected with this course of inquiry into the time-records 
of the rocks, and furnishing the most reliable relative 
chronometry for those ante-human ages, that embracing 
the entire series of discovered fossils. These relics of the 
past are witnesses which, after the most searching cross- 
questioning, furnish one, consistent, unequivocal testimony, 
to the occurrence of successive orders of beings, in periodic 
course, with marked diversities gradually introduced, one 
after another, through prolonged intervals and ages. 

Descending from the surface through such comparatively 
recent debris-beds, as those of the London clay, the geol- 
ogist finds animal forms gradually changing, from those of 
existing species, into new and strange varieties; and by 
the time he has reached the chalk, nearly the whole organ- 
ized system with which he started has been left behind. 
To express this class of facts, in the super-cretaceous beds, 
now referred to, known as the tertiary system, from its 
order in the grand ages of life, classifying Greek designa- 
tions adapted to certain general proportions of displaced 
forms, have been proposed, and adopted into scientific 
nomenclature. They are pleiocene more recent, meiocene 
less recent, and eocene the dawn of recent life ; these divi- 
sions, however, being carefully distinguished from any deposit 
of the human period. For, as will be shown in the next dis- 



166 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

cussion, they have been satisfactorily proved to contain 
no traces of simultaneous human existence. It is in the 
pleiocene, or upper division of the tertiary system, that, 
with instances of mammalian species belonging to the 
present time, we find so abundantly remains of the mas- 
todon and elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus, ox, 
horse, and deer, which, though specifically different from, 
are generically akin to families of our own time. In the 
meiocene portion of the tertiary formation, among forms 
more distinctly separated from the mammalia coexisting 
with mankind, occurs the great dinotherium, or gigantic 
tapir of Cuvier, exceeding in size the largest fossil elephant. 
And in the lowest or eocene section of the tertiary de- 
posits, with other creatures diverse from any found in the 
higher divisions, are discovered those strange, thick-skinned 
pioneers of the tapir, elephant, rhinoceros, and horse fami- 
lies, specimens of which may be seen in the best museums, 
labeled with such names as " Palaotherium," and "Ano- 
plotherium." 

Now, when the gradual and successive changes in the 
order of animal life, thus brought to view, are considered 
in connection with the prodigious extent of the system 
through which the progression is witnessed ; and when the 
whole is compared with what we know of the laws of per- 
manence in the species around us, we are, by our mental 
constitution, compelled to assign to the tertiary period a 
duration to which we dare affix no definite numbers. 
Who, then, shall measure the antecedent term of the great 
secondary period of life ? Here, first, we see a powder, 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 16T 

worn down from coralline structures, and deposited in 
paste, imbedding its own curious memorials of life and 
change, built up into those enormous heaps of chalk, 
which, when afterwards upheaved, and in due time looked 
upon by intelligent human eyes, supply to Albion her 
classic name. Next, we here behold the still earlier oolite, 
in masses even more extensive, bearing in its deep recesses 
the tombs of those amphibious monsters, whale-lizards, 
and serpent-lizards, and bird-lizards, from twenty to seventy 
feet in length, that tenanted indifferently marshy shore or 
mighty wave, and multiplied, ^and fulfilled their cycle of 
existence, and found protecting graves, during the period 
of this vast accumulation. And here, in the yet more 
ancient, though not most ancient, and therefore called 
new red sandstone, the great salt-bearing deposit of the 
world, we meet with those footprints of great birds, and 
of frogs rivaling our ox in size, which reveal some of the 
strange secrets of that ancient time. 

And what shall we say of that great 'paleozoic, or 
primary life-period, to which belong the coal-measures, 
the old red sandstone, and the Silurian limestones? Of 
the first of these, the coal formation, it may here suffice 
simply to mention in proof of its prodigious extent, and 
of the term its preparation required, the incalculable bene- 
fits which, as mighty reservoirs of comfort and power, they 
are conferring, and are destined yet more abundantly to 
confer, upon mankind. Of the second, the old red-sand- 
stone system, the most thoroughly informed observer and 
most competent judge, (Hugh Miller, in his "Old Red 



168 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Sandstone,") testifies: " There are localities in which the 
thickness of the old red sandstone fully equals the eleva- 
tion of Mount JEtna above the sea, (over ten thousand 
feet,) and in which it contains three distinct groups of 
organic remains, the one rising in beautiful progression 
above the other." And of the last member of this 
old life division, the Silurian series, Murchison, its most 
reliable explorer, estimates the extent and age-tokens as 
existing on no smaller scale. 

Anterior, however, as we have seen, to all this incipiency, 
progress, and endless change of life, must be reckoned an 
unknown but vastly extended lifeless age, a period of ad- 
justment in the frame-work of the globe, indicated, accord- 
ing to Humboldt and others, by the evidences of internal 
heat yet existing, and by the phenomena of crystallization, 
which the lowest and infossiliferous rocks always exhibit. 

When all these inductions are combined, we have a 
series of ages of which our measures of duration furnish 
no standard. 

This series of ages is so well described by the profound 
and distinguished Dr. Harris, in his "Pre-Adamite Earth," 
that we feel justified in giving the passage in full, by way 
of recapitulating the view we have presented. He says, 
p. 10, etc.: — 

"Knowing about the date of man's introduction on the 
earth, we proceed to examine the globe itself. And here 
we find that the mere shell of the earth takes us back 
through an unknown series of ages, in which creation fol- 
lowed creation at the distance of vast intervals between. 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 169 

"But though in the progress of our inquiries we soon 
find that we have cleared the bounds of historic time, and 
are moving far back among the periods of an unmeasured 
and immeasurable antiquity, the geologist can demonstrate 
that the crust of the earth has a natural history. That 
he cannot determine the absolute chronology of its suc- 
cessive strata, is quite immaterial. We only ask him to 
prove the order of their position from the newest deposit 
to the lowest step of the series ; and this he can do. For, 
nature itself, by a force calculable only by the God of 
nature, lifting up in places the whole of the stupendous 
series in a slanting ladder-like direction to the surface, has 
revealed to him the order in which they were originally 
laid, and invites him to descend step by step to its awful 
foundations. 

"Let us then descend with him, and traverse an ideal 
section of the earth's crust. Quitting the living surface 
of the green earth, and entering on our downward path, 
our first step may take us below the dust of Adam, and 
beyond the limits of recorded time. From the moment 
we leave the mere surface-soil and touch even the newest 
of the tertiary beds, all traces of human remains disap- 
pear. So that let our grave be as shallow as it may, in 
even the latest stratified bed, we have to make it in the 
dust of a departed world. Formation now follows forma- 
tion, composed chiefly of sand and clay and lime, and pre- 
senting a thickness of more than a thousand feet each. As 
we descend through these, one of the most sublime fictions 
of mythology becomes sober truth, for at our every step 

15 



170 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

an age flies past. We find ourselves on a road, where the 
lapse of duration is marked not by the succession of 
seasons and years, but by the slow excavation, by water, 
of deep valleys in rock-marble; by the return of a con- 
tinent to the bosom of an ocean in which ages before it 
had been slowly formed ; or by the departure of one world 
and the formation of another. And, accordingly, if our 
first step took us below the line which is consecrated by 
human dust, we have to take but a few steps more before 
we begin to find that the fossil remains of all those forms 
of animal life with which we were most familiar are 
diminishing, and that their places are gradually supplied 
by strange and yet stranger forms ; till in the last fossil- 
iferous formation of the division, traces of existing species 
become extremely rare, and extinct species everywhere pre- 
dominate. 

"The secondary rocks receive us as into a new fossil- 
iferous world, or into a new series of worlds. Taking 
the chalk formation as the first member of this series, we 
find a stratification of a thousand feet thick. Who shall 
compute the tracts of time necessary for its slow sediment- 
ary deposition? So vast was it, and so widely different 
were its physical conditions from those which followed, 
that scarcely a trace of animal species still living is to be 
found in it. Crowded as it is with conchological remains, 
for example, not more than a shell or two of all the seven 
thousand existing species are discoverable. Types of 
organic life before unknown arrest our attention, and pre- 
pare us for still more surprising forms. Descending to the 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 1T1 

system next in order, the oolite, with its many divisions, 
and its thickness of about half a mile, we recognize new 
proofs of the dateless antiquity of the earth. For, enor- 
mous as this bed is, it was obviously formed by deposition 
from sea and river water. And so gradual and tranquil 
was the operation that, in some places, the organic re- 
mains of the successive strata are arranged with a shelf- 
like regularity, reminding us of the well-ordered cabinet 
of the naturalist. Here, too, the last trace of animal 
species still living has vanished. Even this link is gone. 
We have reached a point when the earth was in the pos- 
session of the gigantic forms of Saurian reptiles, monsters 
more appalling than the poet's fancy ever feigned; and 
these are their catacombs. Descending through the later 
red sandstones and saliferous marls of two thousand feet 
in thickness, and which exhibit, in their variegated strata, 
a succession of numerous physical changes, our subter- 
ranean path brings us to the carboniferous system, or coal 
formations. These coal strata, many thousands of feet 
thick, consist entirely of the spoils of successive ancient 
vegetable worlds. But in the rank jungles and luxuriant 
wildernesses which are here accumulated and compressed, 
we recognize no plant of any existing species. Nor is 
there a single convincing indication that these primeval 
forests ever echoed to the voice of birds. But between 
these strata, beds of limestone of enormous thickness are 
interposed ; each proclaiming the prolonged existence and 
final extinction of a creation. For these limestone beds 



172 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

are not so much the charnel houses of fossil organisms, as 
the remains of organisms themselves. 

" The mountain masses of stone which now surround us, 
extending for miles in length and breadth, were once 
sentient existences ; tastaceous and coralline ; living at the 
bottom of ancient seas and lakes. How countless the 
ages necessary for their accumulation ; when the formation 
of only a few inches of the strata required the life and 
death of many generations. Here the mind is not merely 
carried back through immeasurable periods, but while 
standing amid the petrified remains of this succession of 
primeval forests and extinct races of animals piled up into 
sepulchral mountains, we seem to be encompassed by the 
thickest shadow of the valley of death. 

"In quitting these stupendous monuments of death, we 
leave behind us the last vestige of land plants, and pass 
down to the old red sandstone. Here, too, we have passed 
below the last trace of reptile life. The speaking foot- 
prints impressed on the carboniferous strata are absent 
here. The geological character of this vast formation 
again tells of ages innumerable. For, though many 
thousand feet in depth, it is obviously derived from the 
materials of more ancient rocks, fractured, decomposed, 
and slowly deposited in water. The gradual and quiet 
nature of the process, and therefore its immense duration, 
are evident from the numerous ' platforms of death' which 
mark its formation, each crowded with organic structures 
which lived and died where they are now seen, and which 
consequently must have perished by some destructive 



THE CHRONOLOGY 01? CREATION. 1^3 

agency, too sudden to allow of their dispersion, and yet 
so subtle and quiet as to leave the place of their habitation 
undisturbed. 

" Immeasurably far behind us as we have already left 
the fair face of the existing creation, while traveling into 
the night of ancient time, we yet feel, as we stand on the 
threshold of the next, or Silurian system, and look down 
toward 'the foundations of the earth/ that we are not half 
way on our course. Here, on surveying the fossil struc- 
tures, we are first struck with the total change in the petri- 
fied inhabitants of the sea, as compared with what we 
found in the mountain limestone; implying the lapse of 
long periods of time during the formation of the interven- 
ing old red sandstone which we have just left. But still 
more are we impressed with the lapse of duration, while 
descending the long succession of strata, of which this pri- 
mary fossiliferous formation is composed, when we think 
of their slow derivation from more ancient rocks ; of their 
oft-repeated elevation and suppression ; of the long periods 
of repose, during which hundreds of animal species ran 
through their cycle of generations and became extinct; 
and of the continuance of this stratifying process, until 
these thin beds had acquired, by union, the immense thick- 
ness of a mile and a half. jNText below this, we reach the 
Cambrian slate system, of almost equal thickness, and 
formed by the same slow process. Here the gradual 
decrease of animal remains admonishes us that even the 
vast and dreary empire of death has its limits, and that we 
are now in its outskirts. But there is a solitude greater 

15* 



174 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

than that of the boundless desert, and a dreariness more 
impressive than that which reigns in a world entombed. 
On leaving these slate rocks, we find that the worlds of 
organic remains are past; and that we have reached a 
region older than death, because older than life itself. 
Here, at least if life ever existed, all trace of it is obliter- 
ated by the fusing power of the heat below. But we have 
not even yet reached a resting-place. Passing down 
through the great beds of mica schist, many thousands of 
feet in depth, to the great gneiss formation, we find that 
we have reached the limits of stratification itself. The 
granitic masses below, of a depth which man can never 
explore, are not only crystallized themselves, but the igne- 
ous power acting through them has partially crystallized 
the rocks above. Not only life, but the conditions of life, 
are here at an end. 

"Now, is it possible for us to look from our ideal posi- 
tion backward and upward to the ten miles' height, sup- 
posing the strata to be piled regularly, from which we have 
descended, without feeling that we have reached a point of 
immeasurable remoteness in terrestrial antiquity? Can we 
think of the thin soil of man's few thousand years, in con- 
trast with the succession of worlds we have passed through ; 
of the slow formation of each of these worlds on worlds, 
by the disintegration of more ancient materials, and their 
subsidence in water; of the leaf-like thinness of a great 
portion of the strata; of the consequent flow of time neces- 
sary to form only a few perpendicular inches of all these 
miles; or of the long periods of alternate elevation and 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 1^5 

depression, action and repose, which mark their formation, 
without acknowledging that the days and years of geology 
are ages and cycles of ages ?" 

That the chronology of creation is thus to be estimated 
on a scale of vast proportions ; that the grandeur of im- 
mense duration is offered to our contemplation in the past 
history of the material universe, as the grandeur of im- 
mense extent is exhibited in the compass of its mighty 
mechanism, is as clearly the conclusion of science as it is 
impressively the intimation of those noble utterances of 
ancient inspired poetry, to which reference has been made. 

But with the truths thus indubitably indicated, how is 
the record of Genesis i. to be reconciled ? What is the 
adequate understanding of that brief but beautiful intro- 
duction to the great volume of revelation, which shall 
harmonize it with the subsequent disclosures of that vol- 
ume, and with the registry that is so deeply inscribed, as 
we have seen, all over the volume of nature ? Two such 
interpretations have been proposed. The one — that which 
we have already mentioned as in our view satisfactorily 
established on exegetical grounds, in connection with the 
geological facts now adduced — the construction which 
reads "ages" as the true meaning of the recurring "yoms" 
of that initial chapter; a reading which we shall presently 
endeavor to show is alone authorized, even by the struc- 
ture of the record itself. The other, a suggestion offered by 
Dr. Chalmers, and admitted for near half a century, as well 
by great Christian naturalists as by able theologians, which 
supposes an interval of ages passed over in silence between 



116 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the first verse of Genesis and the second, and the existing 
condition of our world to have been effected in six natural 
days, described from the second verse onward. 

Of this last view, Dr. Harris is among the ablest recent 
advocates. And it is on this account, and for the sake of 
showing its inadequacy in part from his own statement, 
as well as because of its intrinsic excellence, that we have 
given from him the foregoing extract. Within a few pages 
of the passage quoted, he uses this language: "From a 
careful consideration of the subject, my full conviction is, 
that the sublime affirmation, ' In the beginning God created 
the heaven and the earth? was placed by the hand of in- 
spiration, at the opening of the Bible, as a distinct and 
independent sentence ; that it was the divine intention to 
affirm by it, that the material universe was primarily organ- 
ized by God out of elements not previously existing ; and 
that this originating act was quite distinct from the acts 
involved in the six natural days of the Adamic creation.' 7 

That the first verse of the inspired record has the mean- 
ing here assigned, we make no question ; but that it is to 
be separated by the vast unnoticed interval of multi- 
plied ages from all that follows, supposed to belong to the 
mere Adamic creation, and that such creation only is 
meant to be described in the second and succeeding verses, 
and as accomplished in six natural days, we think disproved 
by considerations of irresistible force. 

In the first place, we ask, is it in accordance with the 
wondrous structure of revelation, in regard to other and 
kindred topics, that so incalculable a sweep of ages and 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 171 

events should be thus passed over without one allusion ? 
Admitting, as we do in full, that the Bible was not in- 
tended to teach natural science in any of its branches, we 
cannot but believe that it was intended to manifest, with 
increasing clearness, inimitable harmony in all the relations 
of truth. The great disclosures of astronomy are not 
detailed in the Scriptures. Yet when, by the light of her 
glorious discoveries in the heavens, Science sits down to a 
reperusal of the inspired volume, and reads there, repeated 
in forms so various and striking, the sublime utterances, 
(Psalm xix. 1,) "The heavens declare the glory of God," 
and (Job, xxvi. 1,) " He stretcheth out the north over the 
empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing," she 
cannot but find in them a significance most impressively 
harmonizing with the revelations she has traced in the out- 
ward world. It is one of the soul-subduing proofs of the 
divine origin of the Bible. And is it to be supposed she 
will find no such affecting relations between the story she 
has seen undeniably written on the age-monuments beneath 
us, and the time-intimations of that wonderful Book ? 

But, again, we ask, what is to be done with that great 
fact of progression in the creative order, which Dr. Harris 
has himself so distinctly recognized and so justly sketched 
in his account of the geological periods ? He truly speaks 
of "the total change from the petrified inhabitants of the 
sea," belonging to the Silurian system, to those of the 
"platforms of death," in the old red sandstone; and from 
these to those "spoils of rank jungles and luxuriant wilder- 
nesses, accumulated and compressed in the coal-series." 



It 8 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Here, he affirms, moreover, is "no trace of bird or reptile 
life;" and yet, in the next higher formation, he admits, as 
existing in abundance, those feathered giants whose foot- 
prints yet abide on the later red sandstone ; and in the 
oolite above, " those Saurian monsters, more appalling than 
poet's fancy ever feigned," And with these begin to appear 
" traces of animal species still existing." Still ascending, 
he finds in the lower tertiary system another fossiliferous 
world, containing additional, though as yet "rare traces 
of existing species." He is in the eocene range — the 
dawn of recent life has opened. Higher up, he meets with 
more frequent "remains of those animal forms with which 
we are familiar," but mingled w T ith many that to us are 
strange. He is in the meiocene or less recent age. And 
proceeding on his upward way, he recognizes, just below 
"the line consecrated by human dust," types of many 
familiar animal species, and some identical with man's con- 
temporaries. Is it credible that all this means nothing, in 
connection with the sacred narrative ? That it is all 
ingulfed in one dark, sealed cavern of oblivion ? And 
that a like general progress from lower to human life, so 
remarkably though so briefly set forth in the record, 
imagined to belong only to the Adamic creation, is a mere 
casual circumstance of no grand significancy ? We cannot 
so believe. 

That three great master life-divisions should be so dis- 
tinctly marked in the grand geological scale as to estab- 
lish, in the fundamental nomenclature of that science, the 
terms primary, secondary, and tertiary, to indicate the 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 179 

general advance toward our present system ; and that the 
Mosaic history should exhibit also three life-stages, we 
cannot deem a merely casual coincidence. But when we 
find a correspondence of the most striking character be- 
tween each of the great geological divisions and the 
parallel stages of the sacred narrative, and the relative 
position of the parts identical in the two series, our im- 
pression of a designed coincidence begins to assume the 
force of a decided conviction. In the primary life-division, 
says Hugh Miller, (The Two Records,) "we find corals, 
crustaceans, molluscs, fishes, and in its later formations a 
few reptiles, but none of these classes of organisms give its 
leading character to the paleozoic ; they do not constitute 
its prominent feature, or render it more remarkable as a 
scene of life than any of the divisions which followed. 
That which chiefly distinguished the primary from the sec- 
ondary and tertiary periods, was its gorgeous flora." It 
was emphatically the period of plants. Of "herbs yield- 
ing seed after their kind." In no other age did the world 
ever witness such a flora. Of this extraordinary age of 
plants every coal-piled grate or stove, and every gas- 
illumined city, is a cheerful remembrancer and speaking 
witness, and no less every glowing furnace and ponderous 
engine. It is patent to all that the first great division on 
the geological scale of organized being was, like that first 
described in the Mosaic record, peculiarly a period of herbs 
and trees, "yielding seed after their kind." 

So again with the next great division on the geological 
scale, the secondary life-period. It had herbs and plants, but 



180 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

not as they had been. In its course there lived also corals, 
crustaceans, molluscs, and fishes, and a few dwarfed mam- 
mals had been introduced on the stage. But none of these 
marked this age. Those huge birds and Saurian mon- 
sters of which we have spoken, distinguished from all 
others the secondary life-period; egg-bearing animals, 
winged, and wingless. And in marvelous agreement with 
all this, the second life-creation of Genesis is, of " moving 
(or creeping) creatures, and fowl, and great whales," or, as 
the margin has it, "great sea monsters. " 

In like manner, we find in the tertiary period a charac- 
teristic class of creatures. Certain genera that had ex- 
isted before had their term extended into this age ; and 
others appeared in its course that were to outlast its close. 
But there was one order of beings peculiar to it, by 
which it was marked off from the ages going before, and 
from the human era to come after — its great mammalian 
giants, beasts of the field, such as in size and number the 
world has in no other age witnessed. And here, as in the 
previous instances, the narrative, so to speak, equally joints 
into the natural order. The third and last life-creation 
before man, is of "cattle and beasts of the earth after 
their kind." Surely coincidences like these cannot reason- 
ably be considered merely casual correspondences between 
two things entirely unconnected, the grand order of all 
mundane creations engraved upon the rocks, and a sketch of 
one fractional part thereof which interpreters would call the 
Adamic creation given by inspiration. How much more 
satisfactory to a comprehensively considerate and sober 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 181 

judgment is that view which exhibits the record as won- 
drously fitting the whole creative series ! 

But there is another fact in the case, respecting which 
we have again to ask, what is to be done with it on the 
day hypothesis ? In the successive geological periods, we 
find a certain overlapping of organized forms, a continu- 
ance, more or less extensive, of some species which belong 
properly to one age, among the forms which become com- 
mon in the next cycle. Creatures beginning in the primary 
division may be traced into the secondary, and in excep- 
tional cases into the tertiary, though the species peculiar 
to the latter gradually rise into great preponderance. But 
there is no instance of a creature that has become extinct 
in an earlier formation being reproduced in a later. Says 
Lyell, (Principles of Geology,) quoting Buffon, " races 
die out, because time fights against them, and new species 
are from time to time called into being," not the old re- 
stored. A race, clearly noticed as having once passed 
away, returns upon the stage no more. The grand flora 
of the coal measures, when once buried, appeared not 
again. The frightful monsters of the oolite fulfilled their 
cycle, and disappeared, to show their hideous forms no 
more forever. And the gigantic beasts of the tertiary age, 
mastodon and mammoth, massive cave-bear and formidable 
cave-hyena, have not, we may gratefully thank Heaven, 
risen up again to terrify us and consume the harvests of 
the earth, since their ancient burial. This, then, is a 
natural law, written all over the geological monuments. 
Baces once destroyed return not again. 

16 



182 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Now, however, by the side of this law, we meet the 
remarkable fact, that numerous species which ranged 
along in the tertiary period, greatly anterior to our time, 
are found coexisting with ourselves. Not only are the 
remains of trees, under which the mammoth roamed, and 
which are found with the bones of that animal, of pre- 
cisely the same species with some that grow in our own 
forests, but such creatures as the badger, the fox, and the 
wild cat, to say nothing of numerous shell-fish, identical 
with those now existing, are proved by their relics to have 
lived during the pre-Adamite tertiary age. Either, then, 
as in previous cases, such races have lived on continuously, 
from the tertiary into the human period, or before the 
Adamic time they were destroyed, and at that time re- 
created. The latter supposition is, as we have seen, con- 
trary to the uniformly observed law of divine procedure ; 
and is therefore altogether improbable. The former must 
then be accepted as the fact. That is, while a large portion 
of the creatures that existed during the tertiary age became 
extinct before man appeared, others lived on in unbroken 
series into the human age, and actually occupied the earth 
when man was called into being. But if this was so, there 
was no such annihilating catastrophe, as the day hypothesis 
assumes, immediately preceding the human term. No utter 
overthrow, breaking-up, and oblivion-working ruin of all 
former creations, just before man was made. Then, the 
tohu and bohu, the "without form and void" of the second 
verse of the inspired history, cannot be justly, as on the 
hypothesis in question they are, construed as denoting the 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 183 

results of such a catastrophe. But instead, they must be 
read as really descriptive of the world's condition next after 
its primary creation. This reduces to a mere chimera, a 
vanishing dream, the notion of that mighty gulf between 
the first grand sentence of our Bible and all that follows. 
But when that dream is dispelled, the day hypothesis is 
gone. It has neither room nor resting-place. It must be 
abandoned. 

These several considerations seem abundantly to discredit 
the day rendering of the Hebrew Yarn. But in doing that, 
they do very much more. They clearly establish the great 
probability of that reading which considers the successive 
Yoms, ages of indefinite extent. 

This probability must, however, be subjected to tests of 
another kind before it can be admitted into the rank of 
established verities. Scripture, by its own nature, and by 
its independent position, as a great system of revealed truth, 
must at last be its own interpreter. It must, indeed, be- 
cause from the same Author, harmonize with all other 
truth certainly known. And a true interpretation may be 
thus suggested from without ; but no sense that it will not 
fairly bear. in its own structure can be forced upon it, no 
matter how otherwise probable. The probability may be 
delusive. The really forced construction cannot be true. 
Ultimately, then, the Bible must interpret itself. And our 
extended Chronology of Creation, probable as it is ren- 
dered by the foregoing considerations, must be brought to 
the test of a fair scriptural examination. 

We take up, therefore, the Sacred History of Creation. 



184 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

And the first thing that strikes us, relative to the point in 
question, is the peculiar indefiniteness of its tone and ex- 
pressions. No definite date for "the beginning" is hinted; 
no exact boundary for "the heavens and the earth." The 
whole history of visible created being is introduced in one 
brief but grand statement, abundantly specific as to the 
world's actual creation by the Almighty, but altogether 
general as to the secondary points of space and time. 
The whence for the world is settled once and forever, but 
the when and the where are left fully open to human 
inquiry. 

Next, we discover nowhere in the record any token of a 
transition from the grandly indefinite to the contracted and 
precise. There is no notice whatever of any commence- 
ment to the exact periods of twenty-four hours that have 
been imagined; while the idea of a leap, so sudden and 
unnoticed, from the noble comprehensiveness of the intro- 
duction to a scale of such diminutive proportions, is at 
once destructive of the consistency of the record, and 
unworthy of its grandeur. Prom this general spirit of the 
history, therefore, we gather that it makes no mention of 
precise, petty periods of twenty-four hours. 

Pass we, then, to 'particulars ; and here a fact which 
every reader has observed immediately claims attention. 
Until the fourth Yom, no mention whatever is made of the 
luminaries by which natural days and all our divisions of 
time are marked. From the first, indeed, as intimated in 
the opening verse, we believe those luminaries to have 
existed, and only to have been made peculiarly manifest in 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 185 

the fourth Yom, perhaps by the clearing up of the atmo- 
sphere. But total silence respecting their office during 
the earlier Yoms seems unmistakably to indicate that those 
periods, at least, were not intended to be described as 
natural days. This particular in the narrative long ago 
occasioned questionings concerning the Yoms. St. Augus- 
tine, on account of it, was constrained to ask, (see Professor 
Lewis's "Six Days of Creation," for this and other sug- 
gestions,) " Quis ergo animo penetret quo modo illi dies 
transierint, antequam inciperent tempora quae quarto die 
dicuntur incipere ?" 

But the particular time designations employed are in 
themselves, and in the manner of their use, no less sig- 
nificant against a natural-day interpretation. The " even- 
ing," "morning," and "day" are not only, according to 
their etymology in the original, and according to scriptural 
and common usage, terms of very general signification, 
but they are, in this history, so employed as really to 
forbid any special sense. The Hebrew word ereb, "even- 
ing," undoubtedly the mother of the Greek epeftog, is de- 
rived from a verb which signifies to mingle. So that a 
mingling or blending time would seem intended to be 
described under that term. In like manner, the Hebrew 
boker, "morning," is derived from a verb meaning to 
cleave or separate, indicating that by that term a dis- 
tinguishing time was meant to be characterized. These 
terms, then, are precisely analogous to Spring and Fall. 
They indicate not specified duration, but modes of being. 
And, accordingly, the Scriptures, as we do, speak of the 

16* 



186 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

morning and evening of the year, or of life, or of the 
world. Xor are the relations of these two words in the 
account less remarkable than their etymological meanings. 
In every instance the evening is placed first; and there is 
nothing, in the remotest degree, to intimate its beginning 
or its end. Had creation and its record opened with the 
gleaming light, there had been marked an initial moment. 
And had any hint been given of some recurring phenomena, 
termini for the evenings and mornings were possibly imag- 
inable. But there is nothing of the kind. It is here, as 
Hesiod later wrote, Mekatva v6~ iyivero, " black night came 
into being;" and Ovid sung, Lucis egens aer, "the ether 
was void of light." 

Similar, precisely, are the indications of the Tom. It 
is a general term descriptive of no particular duration, and 
applied in many senses; as "the Tom of the Lord," "the 
Tom of Jerusalem," "the Tom of justice, or mercy." 
And in the history before us, this word is actually used 
in four distinct senses, viz.: (1) To specify the light-time, 
in v. 5, as we speak of daylight or daytime. (2) To 
denote the phenomenal days, which, with seasons and 
years, the sun was to mark off, as stated in v. 14. Indeed 
in that single verse the word is used in both these senses. 
(3) To characterize, as in ch. ii. v. 4, the sum-total of the 
whole series of creative periods. And (4) To express 
those strange, unphenomenal intervals, of whatever extent 
and however divided, indicated in vss. 5, 8, 13, as not 
marked off by rising or setting sun. Certainly for such a 
word, and in a document where it is thus variously used, 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 187 

no one precise and exclusive sense can be claimed, without 
some more significant condition than its periodical repe- 
tition. It assuredly may, and for reasons already given 
and others to be adduced, we think it should here as in 
other places it must, be read age. As in Micah, iv. 6, 
"In that Yom, (age,) saith the Lord, will I gather the out- 
casts of Israel;" and Isaiah, xii. 1, "In that Yom (age) 
shall ye say, I will praise the Lord, for he is become my 
salvation," etc. 

But the manner in which these several terms are here 
used is, in another respect, still more remarkable. The 
literal translation in the first instance is, "there was an 
evening, and there was a morning, one day." And the 
affirming statement is in every case repeated, though the 
form of the numeral is varied. It is, as if, after describing 
a term of repose and an interval of change, an extended 
darkness and a succeeding progress of illumination, or a 
season of mingled and a term of divided life, it had been 
demonstratively said, "this was the evening and this was 
the morning." 

The peculiar "one day," of the first statement, receives 
some light from a singular instance in Zechariah, xiv. 6-9: 
"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall 
not be clear nor dark ; but it shall be one day, which shall 
be known to the Lord, not day nor night; but it shall 
come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And 
it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from 
Jerusalem ; half of them toward the former sea, and half 
of them toward the hinder sea; in summer and in winter 



188 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

shall it be. And the Lord shall be king on the earth ; in 
that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." 
Nothing can be more obvious than that the "one day" 
here is something widely different from an ordinary interval 
of twenty-four hours. And the parallelism of expression 
would indicate that something also greatly differing from 
the minute section of time is meant for the beginning of 
Toms. Josephus, master as he was of the Hebrew idiom, 
noticed the peculiar intimation contained in this extraor- 
dinary phraseology, (Antiq., book i. ch. 1.) He says: 
"This was the first day, but Moses called it one day, the 
reason of which I am able to give even now, but shall put 
off its expression until another time." The promised ex- 
planation, if ever given, has not come down to us ; but this 
reference to the case is enough to show that the account 
before us was, by so competent a judge, regarded as one 
of very peculiar significancy. 

There is yet another circumstance in the history con- 
firming the age interpretation. No evening and morning 
are assigned the seventh Tom. They are in every case 
before invariably repeated ; here, however, they are very 
singularly omitted. Why is this ? Does it not mark 
something, in the course of this period, distinguishing it 
from the others ? And what is such time-distinction, if not 
that the other terms were finished, but this unfinished ? In 
each instance, certainly, when the "evening" and "morning" 
are assigned to the Tom, that term is represented as 
brought to an end, closed, completed. TVould that in- 
variable form have been departed from in the seventh 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 189 

period, had the Yom in this case been also completed? 
The very omission of the formula of completion seems 
strikingly to intimate that the seventh Yom is not closed, 
that it is yet in progress. If so, this is not a brief term 
of terrestrial rotation, but a prolonged age, the grand 
cycle of man's earthly existence ; a period of mighty 
meaning in the history of creation; consecrated to pur- 
poses not before developed ; devoted mainly to a being of 
high faculty and immortal essence ; and appropriated to a 
wondrous scene of discipline and redemption whose issue 
is to be in the moral universe boundless good, and glory 
unutterable to the Everlasting Father. 

Of the creative history there are two other associated 
traits of great importance, which together conduct to the 
same conclusion; its quasi prophetic character, and its 
peculiar optical aspect. It is a description of events in 
the distant past knowable only by revelation, just as pro- 
phecy is a description of events in the distant future know- 
able only by revelation ; and, like many exhibitions of the 
prophets, it is the statement of an eye-witness. Both of 
these facts are very significant. 

The remarkable visual distinctness imparted to the nar- 
rative would seem to indicate that the grand old processes 
of creation were revealed to Moses, as so many divine dis- 
closures are said in the Bible to have been made, viz., 
through a series of visions, or pictorial representations. 
Of course, if this were so, if the vast serial drama of 
creation were made to pass thus representatively before 
the eye of the Prophet-Historian, he would describe the 



190 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

events exhibited as one who had witnessed them in person, 
and infuse into his account the very vividness which really 
marks the record. But whether this distinguishing feature 
of the history were thus or otherwise produced, one thing 
at least is certain, this peculiar mode of description — by 
obvious appearances — adapts the narrative most marvel- 
ously to every stage of natural knowledge, and renders it 
for the most scientific as well as for the least inquisitive 
age " optically true in all its details." He, surely, needs 
something more than reason to influence his judgment, who 
can see in this adjustment between the simple story of 
creation and the indefinite progress of scientific discovery, 
no impressive evidence of divine truth. 

So, again, with the history in the general character of a 
prophecy to be read backward. The principle, sanctioned 
alike by experience and by direct scriptural authority, that 
prophetic statement is to be rightly understood only when 
fulfillment has shed the full light of verification on the 
predicting page, seems as instructive toward our con- 
clusion as it is justly applicable to the case. "History," 
well says the gifted author of the "Mosaic Vision of 
Creation," "is the surest interpreter of the revealed prophe- 
cies which referred to events posterior to the times of the 
prophet. In what shall we find the surest interpretation 
of the revealed prophecies that referred to events anterior 
to his time ? In what light, or on what principle, shall we 
most correctly read the prophetic drama of creation ? In 
the light, I reply, of scientific discovery ; on the principle 
that the clear and certain must be accepted, when attain- 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 191 

able, as the proper exponents of the doubtful and obscure. 
What fully developed history is to the prophecy which of 
old looked forward, fully developed science is to the 
prophecy which of old looked backward." Here, then, 
also, the only sure canon of prophetic interpretation con- 
ducts us to the same great truth of divinely adjusted 
harmony between the inimitable creative record and the 
hoary monumental rocks. 

Thus does the creative history itself, in every part and 
in every aspect, deny the partial, and declare the grandly 
comprehensive sense. But the scriptural evidence in favor 
of this sense is very far from being confined to this history. 
It is scattered, indeed, all through the Bible. The inspired 
Hebrew poets abound in references to creation and its 
sacred record. And yet in vain shall we look among all 
these allusions for one hint of a circumstance so remark- 
able as the compression of the mighty manifestations of 
infinite power and goodness into a term of days less than 
the lifetime of an ephemeral insect. On the contrary, they 
labor, as we have seen, to convey, in connection with it, 
ideas of vast duration. In carrying us back to those 
ancient ages, they are conducting us as far as mortals can 
go, toward the interminable "from everlasting to ever- 
lasting." 

And when those wonderful Hebrew and Greek words, olam 
and eon, whose simple meaning is merely prolonged time, 
are found so commonly applied in the Scriptures, as such 
words are applied nowhere else, to describe creations and 
worlds, another and a most striking testimony is rendered, 



192 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

by the peculiar structure of inspired language, to the 
grand chronology of creation. One instance of this may 
here suffice. In Hebrews, i. 2, the phrase, "He made the 
worlds" is, rob-z alwvaq imfyGsv, "he made the ages." 
Now this usage with aia>v, as has been justly remarked, 
(Professor Lewis, p. 354,) "is not in the classical Greek. 
We find nothing like it in Homer, or Plato, or iEschylus. 
They never use this word for the world, much less the 
plural for a plurality of worlds in space or time. But no 
mode of speech is better settled in the New Testament, as 
it had previously been in the Old. The inference seems 
unavoidable, that plurality of worlds in time, or creations 
in successive ages, must have been an idea conveyed by in- 
spiration, and early entertained by the Hebrew mind." 

Now when all these proofs are taken together, direct 
and indirect, general and special, from structure of lan- 
guage, and order of statement, in grandeur of thought 
and harmony of meaning, from the Bible as interpreting 
itself, and from nature as interrogated by science, and from 
amazing coincidences between the utterances of revelation 
and the last disclosures of scientific research, candor can 
scarcely be supposed capable of demanding, on such sub- 
jects, a nearer approach to demonstration. 

But to the whole, it is objected that the reason given, 
Exodus, xx. 11, for the human Sabbath, in connection 
with what is said, Genesis, ii. 3, requires the Yoms, in- 
cluding the seventh, to be understood, as just such days as 
the six on which men are required to work, and the 
seventh on which they are commanded to keep a sacred 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 193 

rest. In this, however, there is little weight. The word 
Tom may very well be used in two different senses in the 
fourth commandment, just as we have seen it is used in 
four senses in the creative history. The creature's may 
well be a Sabbath-day, the Creator's a Sabbath-age. And 
this, as before suggested, is indicated by a remarkable 
omission in the earliest mention of the seventh Tom. 

So far, indeed, is the fourth commandment from fur- 
nishing any serious objection to the estimate presented, 
that the relation between this view and that divine ordi- 
nance becomes an additional illustration of the truth we 
have been exhibiting. A weight of meaning is hereby 
added to the commandment immeasurably transcending 
that of the common exposition. This estimate imparts to 
the present cycle a significance no less impressive than is 
the grandeur with which it invests the past and the future. 
It exhibits as the Divine Sabbath man's whole earthly 
term. It makes his entire period here a season divinely 
ordained for sacred purposes ; of which, and of a still more 
sacred state of being in the future, the weekly hallowed 
rest enjoined him is a perpetual type. Thus regarded, 
how supremely important is the fourth commandment I 
How greatly instructive the reason given for its appoint- 
ment ! This thought it were unjust not to permit its 
sagacious and devout propounder to illustrate in his own 
felicitous way of persuasive genius. 

"What I ask, (see 'Two Records,') viewed as a whole, 
is the prominent characteristic of geological history, or of 
that corresponding history of creation which forms the 

It 



194 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

grandly-fashioned vestibule of the sacred volume? Of 
both alike the leading characteristic is progress. In both 
alike do we find an upward progress from dead matter to 
the humbler forms of vitality, and from thence to the 
higher. And after great cattle and beasts of the earth 
had, in due order, succeeded inanimate plants, sea mon- 
sters, and moving creatures that had life, the moral agent, 
man, enters upon the scene. Previous to his appearance 
on earth, each succeeding elevation in the long upward 
march had been a result of creation. The creative fiat 
went forth, and dead matter came into existence. The 
creative fiat went forth, and plants, with the lower animal 
forms, came into existence. The creative fiat went forth, 
and the oviparous animals, birds, and reptiles came into 
existence. The creative fiat went forth, and the mani- 
miferous animals, cattle and beasts of the earth, came into 
existence. And, finally, last in the series, the creative 
fiat went forth, and responsible, immortal man, came into 
existence. But has the course of progress come, in con- 
sequence, to a close ? No ! God's work of elevating, 
raising, heightening, of making the high in due progression 
succeed the low, still goes on. But man's responsibility, 
his immortality, his God-implanted instincts respecting an 
eternal future, forbid that the work of elevation and prog- 
ress should be, as in all other instances, a work of creation. 
To create would be to supersede. God's work of elevation 
now is the work of fitting and preparing peccable, imper- 
fect man, for a perfect, impeccable, future state. God's 
seventh day's work is the work of redemption. And, 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 195 

read in this light, his reason vouchsafed to man for the 
institution of the Sabbath is found to yield a meaning of 
peculiar breadth and emphasis. God, it seems to say, 
rests on his Sabbath from his creative labors, in order that 
by his Sabbath day's work he may save and elevate you; 
rest ye also on your Sabbaths, that through your co-opera- 
tion with him in this great work, ye may be elevated and 
saved. Made originally in the image of God, let God be 
your pattern and example. Engaged in your material and 
temporal employments, labor in the proportions in which 
he labored; but in order that you may enjoy an eternal 
future with him, rest also in the proportions in which he 
rests." 

" One other remark, ere I conclude. In the history of 
the earth which we inhabit, molluscs, fishes, reptiles, mam- 
mals, had each in succession their periods of vast duration ; 
and then the human period began, the period of a fellow- 
worker with God, created in God's own image. What is 
to be the next advance ? Is there to be merely a repetition 
of the past? An introduction the second time of man 
made in the image of God ? No ! The geologist, in those 
tables of stone which form his records, finds no examples 
of dynasties, once passed away, again returning. There 
has been no repetition of the dynasty of the fish, of the 
reptile, of the mammal. The dynasty of the future is to 
have glorified man as its inhabitant; but it is to be the 
dynasty, "the kingdom," not of glorified man made in the 
image of God, but of God himself in the form of man. 
In the doctrine of the two conjoined natures, human and 



196 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

divine, and in the further doctrine that the terminal dynasty 
is to be peculiarly the dynasty of Him in whom the natures 
are united, we find that great progression beyond which 
progress cannot go. We find the point of elevation never 
to be exceeded, meetly coincident with the final period, 
never to be terminated ; the infinite in height harmoniously 
associated with the eternal in duration. Creation and the 
Creator meet at one point and in one person. The long 
ascending line from dead matter to man has been a prog- 
ress God-ward, not an asymptotical progress, but des- 
tined from the beginning to furnish a point of union ; and 
occupyiug that point as true God and true man, as Creator 
and created, we recognize the adorable monarch of all the 
Future." 

Thus does the great chronology of creation, whose gran- 
deur is only equaled by the evidences of its truth, conduct 
the mind by stages, that suitably exercise its best powers, 
to a vantage position, where the lessons of wisdom ap- 
pear like the light-adorned landscape from the mountain's 
summit. Standing there, and listening to the great har- 
monies of nature and revelation, we look backward along 
the track of ages, and learn more of the wonders of His 
being who is "from everlasting to everlasting." We look 
downward upon the crowded monuments of untold buried 
generations of lower creatures, and we are taught more of 
the exhaustless riches of His benignity, who "openeth his 
hand and filleth all things living with plenteousness." We 
survey the vast array, as, in one mighty procession, cycle 
follows cycle of ascending grades of being, and we discover 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF CREATION. 197 

more of order in that all- wise plan, which, by such majestic 
steps, marches on toward consummation in the appearance, 
trial, recovery, and final experience of a race endowed 
with attributes akin to divine. More of those attributes 
do we also behold, in the very opening of the pathway that 
has led us to this summit. Thus to have traced the great 
chain of life through many and profound burials, and even 
to have groped along the thread of creative order beyond 
the dawn of organized existence, through preparatory ages 
of convulsion and erosion, up to that state of mingled ele- 
ments in our globe, next subsequent to the primal creative 
fiat, we perceive to be an achievement not less magnifying, 
in our view, the wondrous endowments of the human mind 
than does the kindred exploit of scaling the heavens, and 
circling with planets and suns in their mighty rounds 
through space. 

But we see more than this. Divine goodness we here 
discover, through a vast series, arranging not only for the 
comfort of the highest animated creature, and for the capa- 
cities and exercise of a philosophic mind, but for the 
delight of an imaginative and the culture of a religious 
soul. Chaos and consolidation, convulsion and subsidence, 
the growth and the grave of many a race, have, with con- 
summate skill, been made subservient alike to the conve- 
nience and the adornment of this human habitation. They 
have furnished a bounteous soil and a genial air, gushing 
fountains and perennial fires, a home of safety, a treasury 
of truth, and a world of beauty. Besides every supply for 
his wants to be drawn by man, with "the sweat of his 

17* 



198 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

brow," from the bosom of his "Alma Mater," in the folds 
of her vestments are stored, for his discovery and extrac- 
tion, mines of wealth and charmed mirrors of truth. And 
those vestments, how rich they are in beauteous adornment ! 
The robe of nature is traced all over with poetry from 
Paradise. Mountain peak and ocean tide, leaping cataract 
and flashing cloud, rolling hill and sloping plain, smiling 
vale and frowning crag, laughing stream and mournful 
shade, pleasant landscape and delightful scenes, — the grand, 
the picturesque, and the lovely, almost everywhere dis- 
played, and awakening in human bosoms those sympathies 
which swell responsive to the touch of genius, and rise to 
rapture as 

"Bright-eyed Fancy 
Scatters from her silver urn 
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn." 

But more than all this, from so grand an eminence of 
harmonized truth appear higher and wider views of that 
great purpose of creative plan, whose issue is "an eleva- 
tion not to be exceeded, a period never to be terminated." 
The abolition of change, the destruction of death, and the 
exaltation of once fallen creatures into union with the ever- 
blessed Creator, through the wondrous mediation, and in 
the everlasting kingdom of that Divine man, who is alike 
"the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end," 
the "Ancient of days," and the Lord of all coming ages. 



DISCUSSION IY. 
THE AGE OF MANKIND. 

The common belief, derived from the Bible, that about 
six thousand years have elapsed since our planet witnessed 
that great miracle which ushered human creatures into be- 
ing, is regarded by certain philosophers as untenable in the 
light of modern science. They estimate the past human 
period as vastly more extended. Just in proportion, there- 
fore, as their views seem to be sustained, the chronology 
of Scripture would appear to be discredited. And this 
admitted, confidence in the higher relations of revelation 
could not but be more or less impaired. We are entering, 
then, upon no superfluous task in undertaking to investi- 
gate the grounds of these two chronologies ; in endeavor- 
ing to trace what science really does teach as to the age of 
mankind, and what the Scriptures, under the scrutiny of 
learned criticism, disclose on the same subject. 

Part of the field we have to survey has often been more 
or less carefully explored. Recent researches have, how- 
ever, shed upon it so much additional light, that the exam- 
ination may be now more satisfactorily conducted. These 
researches, especially as conducted by two eminent German 
scholars, Biinsen and Lepsius, whom we have already had 
occasion to quote, will be suitably used in elucidating our 
subject. As the most thoroughly informed of all Egyp- 

(199) 



200 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tologists, these learned men have had access to all that 
the old Nile monuments have thus far made known respect- 
ing ancient ages. At the same time they are savans of 
almost universal erudition. And, in addition to these 
qualifications, they have brought to their work a spirit 
much more than usually characterized by a simple love of 
truth. These qualities the reader will, we are sure, observe 
in some of the extracts we shall give, when we reach that 
branch of the subject to which their investigations more 
specifically pertain. 

At present our inquiry relates to the scientific evidence 
in the case. We propose to examine the grounds on which 
Professor Agassiz, Dr. Usher, Dr. Leidy, and recently Sir 
Charles Lyell, etc., rest their claim for the indefinite 
antiquity of our race ; and not only to trace, with them, 
indications in the one field they have chosen, but to bring 
testimony from other departments of science. What is on 
the whole substantiated, or rendered most probable, in the 
entire scientific view, will then be evident to the reader. 
This is the instance of evidence offered by Agassiz : — 
" The fossil remains of the human body I possess from 
Florida, were discovered in a bluff upon the shores of Lake 
Monroe. The mass in which they were found is a conglom- 
erate of rotten coral-reef limestone and shells, mostly 
ampularias of the same species now found in the St. John's 
River, which drains Lake Monroe. The question of their 
age is difficult to answer. The point to settle is the rate 
of increase of the peninsula of Florida in its southward 
progress. ... If we assume, from evidence we now have of 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 201 

the additions forming upon the reefs and keys, the rate 
of growth to be one foot in a century, it would require 
135,000 years to form the southern half of the peninsula. 
.... Assuming, further, that the northern half of the 
peninsula, already formed, continued for nine-tenths of 
that time a desert waste, before the fossiliferous conglom- 
erate could be formed, there would still remain 10,000 
years, during which it should be admitted that the main 
land was inhabited by man." 

The very remarkable assumptions in this case cannot 
but strike the reader, as they have surprised ourselves. 
That a philosopher of such world-wide reputation should 
hazard his standing, by committing himself to mere 
guesses of this kind, is to us matter for wonder. Let 
us concede each guess but the last, still there will remain 
a question which the learned Helvetian must find it impos- 
sible to answer. Why assume T 9 a rather than T 9 9 or y 9 ^ 
of 135,000 as the period during which Florida may have 
remained uninhabited by man ? And shall this process of 
assumption pass for scientific investigation ? Is it not a 
species of desecration, when the noble name of Science is 
claimed for such sheer fancies ? — Science, with her calm, 
severe, penetrating eye, and her step careful and sure as 
the march of truth ! 

But we have more to say of the case itself. Professor 
Agassiz fairly admits that his conglomerate consists 
mostly of ampularias of the same species now found in 
the St. John's River. The instance is therefore precisely 
analogous to that of the well-known fossil skeletons of 



202 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Guadaloupe, the comparatively recent age of which Lyell 
years ago established : — 

"The lens shows/' he says, (Principles of Geology, vol. 
iii. p. 265,) "that some of the fragments of coral compos- 
ing this stone, still retain the same red color which is seen 
in the reefs of living coral surrounding the island. The 
shells belong to species of the neighboring sea, intermixed 
with some terrestrial kinds which now live on the island. 
Yet the rock in which these skeletons are imbedded is 
harder than statuary majble. Similar formations are in 
progress in the whole of the West Indian Archipelago : 
and they have greatly extended the plain of Cayes, in St. 
Domingo, where fragments of vases and other human 
works have been found at a depth of twenty feet. In 
digging wells, also, near Catania, in Sicily, tools have been 
discovered in a rock somewhat similar." 

The guess, then, of one-tenth, or one-hundredth of a 
previous guess of so many years, as a possible period dur- 
ing which Florida has been inhabited, and its fossiliferous 
conglomerate accumulating, is, we hazard nothing in say- 
ing, utterly unreliable. It rests on no scientific foundation. 
It is entitled to none of the credit due to veritable science. 
It may therefore be set aside as really showing nothing 
respecting the antiquity of our species. 

The instance adduced by Dr. Usher is, in many respects, 
similar to this of Agassiz, though on a grander scale and 
given more in detail : — 

"The plain on which the City of New Orleans is built 
rises only nine feet above the sea, and excavations are often 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 203 

made far below the level of the Gulf of Mexico. In these 
sections, several successive growths of cypress timber have 
been brought to light. In digging the foundations for the 
gas-works, the Irish spadesmen, finding they had to cut 
through timber instead of soil, gave up the work, and 
were replaced by a corps of Kentucky axemen, who hewed 
their way downward through four successive growths of 
timber, the lowest so old that it cut like cheese. Abra- 
sions of the river banks show similar growths of sunken 
timber; while stately live oaks, flourishing on the bank 
directly above them, are living witnesses that the soil has 
not changed its level for ages. No less than ten distinct 
cypress forests have been traced at different levels below 
the present surface in parts of Louisiana, where the range 
between high and low water is much greater than it is at 
New Orleans. These groups of trees, the live oaks on the 
banks, and the successive cypress beds beneath, are arranged 
vertically above each other, and are seen to great advant- 
age in many places in the vicinity of New Orleans." 

"An ingenious calculation has been made of the last emer- 
gence of the site of that city, in which these cypress forests 
play an important part. The history of this event is thus 
divided into three eras: 1. The era of colossal grasses, 
trembling prairies, etc., as seen in the lagoons, lakes, and 
sea-coast. 2. The era of the cypress basins. 3. The era 
of the present live-oak platform. Existing types from the 
Balize to the Highlands show that these belts were succes- 
sively developed from the water in the order named ; the 
grass preceding the cypress, and the cypress being sue- 



204 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

ceeded by the live-oak. Supposing an elevation of five 
inches in a century, which is about the rate recorded for 
the accumulation of detrital deposits in the valley of the 
Nile, during seventeen centuries, by the nilometer men- 
tioned by Strabo, we shall have 1500 years for the era of 
aquatic plants until the appearance of the first cypress 
forest; or, in other words, for the elevation of the grass 
zone to the condition of a cypress basin." 

"Cypress-trees of ten feet in diameter are not uncom- 
mon in the swamps of Louisiana; and one of that size 
was found in the lowest bed of the excavation at the gas- 
works in New Orleans. In timber of this kind from 95 to 
120 rings of annual growth have been measured in an 
inch ; and, according to the lower ratio, a tree of ten feet 
diameter will yield 5T00 rings of annual growth; indicat- 
ing that number of years as the age of the tree. Though 
many generations of such trees may have grown and perished 
in the present cypress region, yet to avoid all ground of 
cavil only two generations are assumed, giving 11,400 years. n 

" The maximum age of the oldest tree growing on the 
live-oak platform is estimated at 1500 years, and only one 
generation is counted. These data yield the following 
table : — 

"Geological Chronology of the Last Emergence of the Site of 
New Orleans. 

Era of the aquatic plants 1,500 years. 

Era of the cypress basin 11,400 " 

Era of the live-oak platform 1,500 " 

Total period of elevation 14,400 " 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 205 

"Each of these sunken forests must have had a period 
of rest and gradual depression, estimated as equal to the 
1500 years of the live-oak era, which of course occurred 
but once in the series. We shall then certainly be within 
bounds, if we assume the period of such elevation to have 
been equivalent to the one above arrived at; and, inas- 
much as there were at least ten such changes, we reach the 
following result : — 

Last emergence, as above 14,400 years. 

Ten elevations and depressions, each equal to this. ..144,000 " 



Total age of the delta 158,400 " 

"In the excavation at the gas-works above referred to, 
burnt wood was found at the depth of sixteen feet ; and, at 
the same depth, the workmen discovered the skeleton of a 
man. The cranium lay beneath the roots of a cypress tree, 
belonging to the fourth forest level below the surface, and 
was in good preservation. The other bones crumbled to 
pieces on being handled." 

"If we take, then, the present era at 14,400 years, 

and add three subterranean groups 43,200 " 

we have a total human period at least of 57,600 " 

"From these data it appears that the human race 
existed in the delta of the Mississippi, more than 5f,000 
years ago." 

In all this there may be, as its propounder alleges, 
ingenuity, but it is undoubtedly entitled to no credit as a 

18 



206 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

specimen of scientific investigation. Nearly every element 
of the calculation is again vitiated by the most unwarrant- 
able assumption. 

The authority for ten successive beds of cypress forest, 
grown over one another, is vague and worthless. The 
idea of alternate elevations and depressions of such sunken 
forests, is an enormous assumption, involving the supposi- 
tion of prodigious volcanic forces. These, if real, leave no 
room for regular guess-work, immensely fitful as they are. 

That such buried trees actually grew where they are 
found imbedded, is also an assumption, by no means to be 
admitted. 

"When timber," says Lyell, "is drifted down by a river, 
it is often arrested by lakes ; and, becoming water-logged, 
it may sink and become imbedded in the lacustrine strata. 
... In the course of the Mackenzie River we have an ex- 
ample of the vast accumulations of vegetable matter now 
in progress. ... As the trees retain their roots, which are 
often loaded with earth and stones, they readily sink, and, 
accumulating in the eddies, form shoals, which ultimately 
augment into islands. . . . Yast quantities of drift timber 
are buried under the sand at the mouth of the river, and 
it has formed a barrier of islands and shoals." 

Occurrences of this kind, repeated in the floods of no 
great number of centuries, abundantly explain the phe- 
nomena of the Mississippi delta. "Por," adds Lyell, 
"the trunks of trees borne down by the Mississippi, many 
of them subside, and are imbedded in the new strata which 
form the delta." 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 207 

There is, therefore, no support for the assumption of 
cypress forests growing one over another in interminable 
succession. 

And the further demand that four gigantic growths of 
the kind be allowed in the trifling vertical range of sixteen 
feet, is nothing less than preposterous. 

As to skeletons in such cases, they may be of com- 
paratively recent deposit. "At the distance of fifty miles 
from the base of the delta of the Ganges/' says the eminent 
geologist already quoted, "there is a circular space of 
about fifteen miles in diameter, where soundings of a thou- 
sand feet sometimes fail to reach the bottom. As, during 
the flood season, the quantity of mud and sand poured by 
the great river into the bay of Bengal is so great that the 
sea only recovers its transparency at the distance of sixty 
miles from the coast, this depression must be gradually 
shoaling. Now, if a human body sink down to the bottom 
in such a spot, it is by no means improbable that it may 
become buried under a depth of three or four thousand 
feet of sediment in the same number of years. " And if by 
the gradual or sudden action of internal force, this deposit 
were upheaved, and subsequently by some casualty laid 
open to human inspection, how many millions of ages 
would it not mark on the unscientific chronological scale 
of the instances we are examining ? 

The ingenious estimate of 51,000 years for the New 
Orleans skeleton is probably about as accurate. 

"In the delta of the Ganges," Lyell further states, 
"bones of men have been found, in digging a well, at the 



208 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

depth of ninety feet ; but as that river frequently shifts its 
course, and fills up its ancient channels, we are not called 
upon to suppose that these bodies are of extremely high 
antiquity, or that they were buried when that part of the 
surrounding delta, where they occur, was first gained from 
the sea." The parallel between such cases and the New 
Orleans exhumations may be judged of from the following 
fact, stated by Flint, in his "Geography of the Mississippi 
Valley." "At every flood, the Mississippi River over- 
spreads a vast country, principally on its western sides, 
from ten to fifty miles in breadth, through the last five 
hundred miles of its course ; and most of the water which 
overflows below Red River goes to the Gulf of Mexico 
without returning to the river." 

No estimate of fifty thousand or five thousand years, in 
such cases, can justly claim the slightest confidence. It 
is not sustained by probability, it is repudiated by science. 

Not is less to be said in regard to other so-termed 
instances of indefinitely old human relics. "The human 
bones," says Lyell, quoting with approbation the judg- 
ment of Desnoyers, "associated in certain caverns, etc., 
with the fossil rhinoceros, hyena, bear, and several other 
lost species, must belong, not to the antediluvian periods, 
but to a people in the same stage of civilization as those 
who constructed the tumuli and altars of the primitive in- 
habitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. Since the flint- 
hatchets, and arrow-heads, and the pointed bones, and 
coarse pottery of such caves, agree precisely in character 
with those found in the tumuli and under the dolmens, 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 209 

(altars of unhewn stone.) It is not, therefore, on such 
evidence that we ought readily to admit the high antiquity 
of the human race." 

Dr. Leidy, more cautious and more candid than the phi- 
losophers we have reviewed, fairly admits that no such high 
antiquity is scientifically established. That " primitive 
races of men may have inhabited the intertropical re- 
gions," in a vastly remote age, he indeed supposes. And 
that evidence of the fact will yet be discovered, he is 
" strongly inclined to suspect." Still his candid avowal is, 
"No satisfactory evidence has been adduced in favor of 
this early appearance of man." " While engaged in 
palseontological researches," he states, "I sought for ear- 
lier records of the aboriginal races of man than have 
reached us through vague traditions, or through later 
authentic history, but without being able to discover any 
positive evidences of the exact geological period of the 
advent of man in the fauna of the earth. The numerous 
facts which have been brought to our notice, touching the 
discovery of human bones, and rude implements of art, in 
association with the remains of animals of the earlier plei- 
ocene deposits, are not conclusive evidence of their con- 
" temporaneous existence." 

This, from so accomplished a paleontologist, who is suf- 
ficiently disposed, as his declarations show, to find, if pos- 
sible, a high antiquity for mankind, is well-nigh conclusive 
as to the negative relations of science in the case. He is, 
in fact, an authority of great weight against the instances 
of Agassiz and Dr. Usher, and all others like them, that 

18* 



210 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

have been urged. His admissions afford also no slight 
support to the considerations we have been pressing, on 
the basis of fact, according to witnesses of the most un- 
questionable character. 

Other instances of ancient deposit, supposed to indicate 
a high antiquity for the human race, now, however, claim 
our attention; instances recently accepted by observers 
of largest experience in this department of research, and — 
though much discussed pro and con in the scientific world 
at the present time, no less than eighteen communications, 
on one or the other side of the questions involved, having 
appeared within the last six months in the London Ath- 
enaeum alone — more or less relied upon, as sustaining the 
idea of a past term for mankind much more extended than 
that commonly assigned. These cases are significant in 
themselves, but become doubly important by reason of the 
weighty names which give them no inconsiderable author- 
ity. Among these, that of Sir Charles Lyell carries of 
course most influence, especially in connection with the 
fact that heretofore his caution on this particular subject 
has been not less remarkable than his scientific judgment 
has been generally careful, comprehensive, and in the main 
reliable. The instances referred to, we shall first exhibit ' 
and then scrutinize. They cannot, perhaps, be better pre- 
sented than in a late statement of the distinguished votary 
of geological science last mentioned. 

At the meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, September, 1859, in the section geology, 
the president, Sir Charles Lyell, read the opening address, 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 211 

which, so far as relates to the question before us, we give 
entire : — 

"No subject has lately excited more curiosity and gen- 
eral interest among geologists and the public than the 
question of the antiquity of the human race : whether or 
no we have sufficient evidence to prove the former coexist- 
ence of man with certain extinct mammalia, in caves or in 
the superficial deposits commonly called drift or diluvium. 
For the last quarter of a century, the occasional occur- 
rence, in various parts of Europe, of the bones of man or 
the works of his hands, in cave-breccias and stalactites, 
associated with the remains of the extinct hyena, bear, 
elephant, and rhinoceros, have given rise to a suspicion 
that the date of man must be carried farther back than we 
had heretofore imagined. On the other hand, extreme re- 
luctance was naturally felt on the part of scientific reasoners 
to admit the validity of such evidence, seeing that so many 
caves have been inhabited by a succession of tenants, and 
have been selected by man as a place not only of domicile 
but of sepulture, while some caves have also served as the 
channels through which the waters of flooded rivers have 
flowed; so that the remains of living beings which have 
peopled the district at more than one era may have subse- 
quently been mingled in such caverns, and confounded 
together in one and the same deposit. The facts, however, 
recently brought to light during the systematic investiga- 
tion, as reported on by Falconer, of the Brixham Cave, 
must, I think, have prepared you to admit that skepticism 
in reference to the cave-evidence in favor of the antiquity 



212 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

of man had previously been pushed to an extreme. To 
escape from what I now consider was a legitimate deduc- 
tion from the facts already accumulated, we were obliged 
to resort to hypotheses requiring great changes in the rela- 
tive levels and drainage of valleys, and, in short, the whole 
physical geography of the subsequent regions where the 
caves are situated — changes that alone imply a remote an- 
tiquity of the human fossil remains, and make it probable 
that man was old enough to have coexisted, at least, with 
the Siberian mammoth. But, in the course of the last fif- 
teen years, another class of proofs has been advanced, in 
France, in confirmation of man's antiquity, into two of 
which I have personally examined in the course of the 
present summer, and to which I shall now briefly advert. 

M First. So long ago as the year 1844, M. Aymard, an 
eminent palaeontologist and antiquary, published an account 
of the discovery, in the volcanic district of central France, 
of portions of two human skeletons (the skulls, teeth, and 
bones) imbedded in a volcanic breccia, found in the Mount- 
ain of Denise, in the environs of Le Puy en Yelay, a breccia 
anterior in date to one, at least, of the latest eruptions of 
that volcanic mountain. On the opposite side of the same 
hill the remains of a large number of mammalia, most of 
them of extinct species, have been detected in tufaceous 
strata, believed, and I think correctly, to be of the same 
age. The authenticity of the human fossils was from the 
first disputed by several geologists, but admitted by the ma- 
jority of those who visited Le Puy, and saw with their own 
eyes the original specimen now in the museum of that 



THE AGE OP MANKIND. 213 

town. Among others, M. Pictet, so well known to you 
by his excellent work on palaeontology, declared, after his 
visit to the spot, his adhesion to the opinions previously 
expressed by Aymard. My friend, Mr. Scrope, in the sec- 
ond edition of his " Volcanoes of Central France," lately 
published, also adopted the same conclusion, although after 
accompanying me this year to Le Puy, he has seen reason 
to modify his views — the result of our joint examination. 
. . . But while* I have thus failed to obtain satisfactory evi- 
dence in favor of the remote origin assigned to the human 
fossils of Le Puy, I am fully prepared to corroborate the 
conclusions which have been recently laid before the Royal 
Society by Mr. Prestwick, in regard to the age of the flint 
implements associated in undisturbed gravel, in the north 
of France, with the bones of elephants, at Abbeville and 
Amiens. These were first noticed at Abbeville, and their 
true geological position assigned to them by M. Boucher de 
Perthes, in 1849, in his "Antiquites Celtiques," while those 
of Amiens were afterwards described, in 1855, by the late 
Dr. Rigollot. For a clear statement of the facts, I may 
refer you to the abstract of Mr. Prestwick's memoir in the 
Proceedings of the Royal Society for 1859, and have only 
to add that I have myself obtained abundance of flint im- 
plements during a short visit to Amiens and Abbeville. 
Two of the worked flints of Amiens were discovered in 
the gravel pits of St. Acheul, one at the depth of ten, and 
the other of seventeen feet below the surface, at the time of 
my visit ; and M. Georges Pouchet, of Rouen, author of a 
work on the Races of Man, who has since visited the spot, 



214 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

has extracted with his own hands one of these implements, 
as Messrs. Prestwick and Flower had clone before him. 
The stratified gravel resting immediately on the chalk in 
which these rudely-fashioned implements are buried, belongs 
to the post-pliocene period, all the fresh-water and land 
shells which accompany them being of existing species. 
The great number of the fossil instruments which have 
been likened to hatchets, spear-heads, and wedges, is truly 
wonderful. More than a thousand of them have already 
been met with in the last ten years, in the valley of the 
Somme, in an area fifteen miles in length. I infer that a 
tribe of savages, to whom the use of iron was unknown, 
made a long sojourn in this region ; and I am reminded of 
a large Indian mound, which I saw in St. Simond's Island, 
in Georgia — a mound ten acres in area, having an average 
height of five feet, chiefly composed of cast-away oyster- 
shells — throughout which arrow-heads, stone axes, and 
Indian pottery are dispersed. If the neighboring River 
Altamaha, or the sea which is at hand, should invade, 
sweep away, and stratify the contents of this mound, it 
might produce a very analogous accumulation of human 
implements, unmixed perhaps with human bones. Al- 
though the accompanying shells are of living species, I 
believe the antiquity of the Abbeville and Amiens flint im- 
plements to be great indeed, if compared to the times of 
history and tradition. I consider the gravel to be of flu- 
viatile origin ; but I could detect nothing in the structure 
of its several parts indicating cataclysmal action, nothing 
that might not be due to such river-floods as we have wit- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 215 

nessed in Scotland during the last half century. It must 
have required a long period for the wearing down of the 
chalk which supplied the broken flints for the formation of 
so much gravel at various heights, sometimes 100 feet 
above the present level of the Somme, for the deposition 
of fine sediment, including entire shells, both terrestrial and 
aquatic, and also for the denudation which the entire mass 
of stratified drift has undergone, portions having been 
swept away, so that what remains of it often terminates 
abruptly in old river-cliffs, besides being covered by a 
newer unstratified drift. To explain these changes, I 
should infer considerable oscillations in the level of the 
land in that part of France — slow movements of upheaval 
and subsidence, deranging but not wholly displacing the 
course of the ancient rivers. Lastly, the disappearance of 
the elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera of quadrupeds 
now foreign to Europe, implies, in like manner, a vast 
lapse of ages, separating the era in which the fossil imple- 
ments were framed and that of the invasion of Gaul by the 
Romans." (Athenaeum for September 24th, 1859, p. 404.) 
In this whole statement, it will be observed, there are 
three several classes of deposit adduced, in connection with 
the supposed age of mankind. That of the cavern accu- 
mulations, that of the volcanic region of Central France, 
and that of the diluvian or modified drift-beds of the Somme 
Valley, and of corresponding localities in England, and 
perhaps elsewhere. Each of these it is proper to examine 
with as much fullness yet succinctness as may comport with 
a fair elucidation of truth. 



216 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Before doing so, however, we direct attention to the 
general conclusion derived by the eminent philosopher from 
all the instances together. It is given in a double form : 
first, in connection with the cave deposits, which are said 
"to make it probable that man was old enough to have co- 
existed, at least, with the Siberian mammoth;" and, second, 
as an inference from the circumstances attending the Abbe- 
ville and Amiens flint instruments, which ''imply," he con- 
siders, "o. vast lapse of ages, separating the era in which 
those fossil implements were framed, and that of the in- 
vasion of Gaul by the Romans," or which, as previously 
expressed in another form, induce him to "believe the 
antiquity of those instruments to be great indeed if com- 
pared to the times of history and tradition." 

On this general conclusion these remarks occur; first, 
everything like dogmatic decision is, with accustomed pro- 
priety, avoided by this distinguished observer. He thinks a 
certain result rendered "probable,* "implied," by given 
circumstances, and therefore he "infers," and "believes ;" 
but there is no positive dictum, no arrogant disregard of 
other and what may be more than counterbalancing oppo- 
site evidence. Every term employed involves more or less 
a consciousness of liability to error, something of lingering 
doubt in the mind, and leaves room for subsequent cor- 
rection. 

Next, the indefinite expressions applied to the antiquity 
supposed differ widely from the specifications of Millenia 
attempted in the instances already examined. The several 
phrases certainly denote, on the part of the learned in- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 211 

vestigator, an opinion which we are satisfied can be proved 
extreme if not wholly erroneous. Still, taken together, 
and regarded as modifying each other, we do not know 
that these expressions, even in the sense of their author, 
necessarily involve any greater extension of the past human 
period than, as will presently appear, the Scriptures them- 
selves seem to authorize. Several decades of centuries might, 
perhaps, as we shall see, be admitted here, or in any other 
case, on adequate grounds, without violence to the sacred 
records, or to the great facts of human history. Such 
interval would undoubtedly, as an item in man's past ex- 
istence, be, if not hyperbolically "a vast lapse of ages," 
yet soberly "a period great indeed if compared with the 
times of (authentic profane) history or tradition," and 
might readily leave man " old enough to have coexisted, at 
least, with the Siberian mammoth." 

This moderate range, however, while apparently not 
commensurate with LyelPs inferences, would not, it may be 
confidently assumed, satisfy the exorbitant demands of a 
large class of Scripture opponents. It becomes, therefore, 
doubly proper to examine in detail the reasons given by 
so influential a writer for his opinion, and to exhibit the 
grounds of a different estimate. The reader will judge on 
which side lies the truth. 

How far the latest cave-evidence alone would have in- 
fluenced LyelPs mind it may not be possible to determine. 
His own words respecting it are characteristically cautious. 
Recent facts reported by Falconer, from the Brixham Cave, 
"have prepared" him and others "to admit that skepticism," 

19 



218 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

in regard to such " evidence in favor of human antiquity, 
had been pushed to an extreme." He "now" considers 
man's being "old enough to have coexisted, at least, with 
the Siberian mammoth, 7 ' a legitimate deduction "from cava 
instances" "already acccumulated," only to be escaped by 
supposing "changes in the level of regions where the caves 
are situated, which "alone imply a remote antiquity for the 
human fossil remains." 

As to this last suggestion, of an extended age being 
implied in great and repeated changes of level; a sug- 
gestion also applied, it will be remembered, to the appear- 
ances of the Somme Valley, we shall of course make no 
issue, so far as the general truth is concerned. The entire 
range of geological phenomena unquestionably proves that, 
on the whole, vast elevations and depressions of land or 
sea have required for their development immense periods ; 
that the superficial structure admitting, and the internal 
forces producing them, exist on a scale, and operate under 
conditions, which make time an important element toward 
the final result. (See particularly on the subject:, Hitch- 
cock's able paper in the Smithsonian Contributions to 
Knowledge, vol. ix.) But as to the invariable application 
of this general law to all cases of considerable change, 
supposing such established, so as to found thereon any- 
thing like a reliable conclusion in a question so much con- 
troverted, and so important as that respecting the age of 
mankind, we are by abundant and undeniable facts author- 
ized confidently to raise the most unequivocal issue. The 
truth is, this seems to be, like his persistent opposition to 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 219 

the doctrine of internal heat, established by so many facts, 
and received by such philosophers as Humboldt as scarcely 
less certain than the conclusions of astronomy, one of the 
instances in which Lyell, with all his ability and attain- 
ments, exhibits participation in the weaknesses of human- 
ity, — a case in which he pushes to an erroneous extreme 
his favorite theory of the sameness of terrestrial energies 
in different ages. He has witnessed and described the 
slow emergence of the shores of Northern Europe, at the 
rate of from one to three feet in a century, (Principles of 
Geology, vol. ii. p. 280,) and the fact is too readily general- 
ized, too specifically applied. Even such a rate, however, 
might introduce, in no very long time, all the changes of 
level alleged as necessary to be supposed if the cave-evi- 
dence is to be harmonized with a moderate human period. 
This single consideration seems at once to neutralize a 
main element of the great geologist's difficulty. 

But the case is very much stronger against his inferences. 
For, while the land is thus in our day rising in Northern 
Europe, it appears to be sinking on the shores of the Med- 
iterranean. Breislack mentions (Mantell's Wonders of 
Geology, vol. i. p. 118,) that " numerous remains of build- 
ings are to be seen in the Gulf of Baise; ten columns of 
granite, at the foot of Mount Nuovo, are nearly covered 
by the sea, as are the ruins of a palace built by Tiberius in 
the Island of Caprea. Thus while the level of the sea is 
becoming lower in the North from the elevation of the land, 
it is rising in the Mediterranean from the sinking of its 
coasts." 



220 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Nor is this all ; but such changes may take place, and do 
take place, at times, much more rapidly, and over immense 
tracts of country, so as utterly to forbid, as derived 
from them alone, all sweeping generalizations respecting a 
mighty past for mankind. A region of country along the 
western coast of South America, equal in extent to half of 
France, experienced thus a considerable elevatory move- 
ment in 1822-3, and again in 1835 : the result, including 
effects of previous but recent similar disturbances, being a 
total elevation of more than fifty feet. (Mantell, vol. i. p. 
112.) Nor let it be said that these movements occur only 
in the vicinity of active volcanoes. In such relations they 
may of course be most commonly looked for, but not ex- 
clusively there. As all countries exhibit proofs of such 
action in the distant past of the world's chronology, so the 
present constitution of the earth's crust seems to be such, and 
such the condition of its internal forces, that no extensive 
region can be pronounced at any time exempt from liability 
to agitations of the kind. Indeed, comparatively modern 
instances are not unfamiliar. The instructive author last 
quoted says of them that they " occur in almost every part 
of the world, and there is perhaps no considerable extent 
of country which does not afford some proof that similar 
physical mutations have taken place in modern times." 
The case of the British coast, from Brighton to Rotting- 
dean, he adduces and examines, with this result, (p. 115:) 
"Here then we have unquestionable evidence that the 
Sussex shores have been subjected to changes similar to 
those produced by earthquakes on the Chilian coast." 



THE AGE OF MANKIND 221 

With these facts in view, it is plainly delusive to attempt 
to rest an estimate of prodigious antiquity for mankind 
on the mere circumstance of even considerable changes of 
level. 

In reference, however, to these and other questions con- 
nected with the cave accumulations, it should be borne in 
mind that the main facts have been for a number of years 
familiar to leading scientific minds, without, in their esti- 
mation, necessitating any such conclusion as that now in- 
dicated by Lyell. Dr. Leidy, assuredly as unprejudiced 
in favor of our views as he is well-informed and able, was 
far from ignorant of the general cave-indications, when, in 
185T, in language we have already had occasion to quote, 
he affirmed with a decision as honorable to his candor as to 
his intelligence, "the numerous facts which have been 
brought to our notice touching the discovery of human 
bones, and rude implements of art, in association with the 
remains of animals of the earlier pleiocene deposits, are 
not conclusive evidence of their contemporaneous exist- 
ence." A conviction almost identical with this has, by Sir 
Charles Lyell himself, been avowed and defended up to the 
present time. It is even alluded to in his recent address 
Nor does he therein intimate what decisive peculiarity, 
what experimentum crucis in the case of the Brixham Cave, 
co-operated with the Abbeville and Amiens flint hatchets, 
etc., to shake his long-settled judgment. We are at 
liberty, therefore, in the absence of such special explana- 
tion of that instance, to suppose that though in some 
respects, perhaps, more striking than other receptacles of 

10* 



222 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the kind, it furnished no conclusive additional proof, nothing 
decisive of its own authority, or of the cave-evidence in 
general, toward a real determination of human antiquity. 

Of this general evidence the value may, therefore, be 
still reasonably estimated by each considerate mind, in view 
of the leading facts. They are well summed up by Man- 
tell, (vol. i. p. 184.) "As mankind, in an uncivilized state, 
commonly inhabit caves, traces of their having occupied 
recesses which had previously been the retreat of wild 
animals, might be expected. But as bones of extinct 
species occurred with these relics of man, it was assumed 
that they were coeval with each other ; more accurate ob- 
servations have, however, rendered it probable that the 
human remains were introduced at a later period. TVe 
have historical proof that the early inhabitants of Europe 
often resided, or sought shelter in caves. Thus Florus 
records that Cassar ordered the inhabitants of Aquitania 
to be inclosed and suffocated in the caverns to which they 
had fled for safety, (an atrocious cruelty imitated in Algeria 
within our time by the troops and commander of a so-called 
Christian nation !) Many tribes of the Celtic race occu- 
pied these subterranean retreats, not only as a refuge in 
time of war, but also for shelter from cold, and as magazines 
for their corn, and for the products of the chase, and as 
places of concealment for the animals they had domesti- 
cated. The bones of such of these people as perished, or 
were buried in the caverns, would become blended with the 
mud, gravel, and debris of the animals already entombed ; 
and a stalagmite paste might in some places be formed by 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 223 

the infiltration of water, as at Bize, and cement the whole 
into a solid aggregate. In concretionary masses of stone 
of this kind, containing bones of the bear and other ex- 
tinct species, human bones, fragments of pottery, terrestrial 
shells, and bones of animals of modern times, may there- 
fore be associated. Some of the bones found in these 
accumulations exhibit marks of having been gnawed, 
probably by hyenas ; they belong to the tiger, bear, wolf, 
fox, weasel, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, 
and deer, imbedded with which are also toones of a species 
of hare or rabbit, water-rat, and mouse, with fragments 
of the skeletons of ravens, pigeons, larks, and ducks . . . 
From these facts it is inferred that such caves had been 
inhabited by hyenas for a considerable period, and that 
many of the remains found there were species which had 
been carried in and devoured by these animals, and that in 
some instances the hyenas preyed upon each other. The 
gnawed portions of elephants' bones serve to show that 
occasionally the large mammalia served as food. It is 
probable that many of the smaller animals were drifted in 
by currents, or fell into the chasm through fissures now 
closed by stalactitical incrustations. . . . Such are the con- 
tents of numerous caves, and this explanation shows how 
they may have been accumulated." 

The view thus presented seems satisfactorily sustained by 
the most recent instances. Of the bone-cave at Brixham, 
Devonshire, referred to by Lyell, Prof. Owen, in his "Palae- 
ontology," just issued, says (p. 136) that, "during its careful 
exploration by a committee of the Geological Society of 



224 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

London, in 1858-9, a stone weapon or implement (of hu- 
man construction) was met with beneath a fine antler of a 
reindeer, and a bone of the cave-bear, imbedded in the 
superficial stalagmite." And he adds, "Dr. Falconer, 
F. G. S., has communicated (proceedings of the Geologi- 
cal Society, June 22, 1859,) the results of his examination 
of ossiferous caves at Palermo ; and, in respect to the ' Ma- 
ceognone Cave/ he draws the following inferences : 'That 
it was filled up to the roof within the human period, so that 
a thick layer of bone-splinters, teeth, land-shells, coprolites 
of hyena, and human objects, was agglutinated to the roof 
by the infiltration of water holding lime in solution ; that 
subsequently, and within the human period, such a great 
amount of change took place in the physical configuration 
of the district as to have caused the cave to be washed out 
and emptied of its contents, excepting the floor-breccia and 
the patches of material cemented to the roof, and since 
coated with additional stalagmite.'" 

This whole class of indications, therefore, clearly exhibits 
nothing to prove the supposed enormous human period, 
but tends instructively to an opposite conclusion. 

On the case of the few remains found in the volcanic dis- 
trict of central France, we need not dwell. Lyell's own state- 
ment suffices. That Mr. Scrope, after fuller examination, 
had ceased to rely upon their previously imagined age, and 
that he has himself u failed to obtain satisfactory evidence 
in favor of the remote antiquity assigned them." But 
this very avowal, so creditable to the philosopher's fairness 
of mind, in view of the bias his judgment was experiencing 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 225 

from other quarters, suggests the significant fact, that opin- 
ions of scientific men on minute particulars of this kind 
are, and from the nature of the case must be, exceedingly 
variant, and should therefore be received with caution and 
canvassed with freedom. While some geologists have dis- 
puted the relation of these remains to the issue claimed, 
M. Aymard, M. Pictet, Mr. Scrope, and others, have ac- 
cepted them as decisive; yet the latter gentleman finds 
reason to modify his first impressions, and his illustrious 
friend discovers in all the circumstances at last " no satis- 
factory evidence !" A more striking illustration of the un- 
reliableness of single instances, of inferences and dicta 
founded thereon, and of the mere authority of individual 
names, need not be desired. 

The old flint instruments lately discovered in the Somme 
Valley, and kindred deposits found or supposed to exist in 
other localities similarly situated, in connection with a 
leaning he has acquired toward a late development-hypoth- 
esis, presently to be noticed, after all, plainly constitute 
the main ground of Ly ell's new impressions as to the long 
ages of man's past existence. The other cases are to this, 
apparently, but as the feather that turns the balance al- 
ready weighted, the drop that overflows the goblet just 
quivering to the full. Yet in the Amiens case, etc., Lyell's 
inferences seem certainly more than a little extreme. Not 
that we mean to question the general credit due to the 
opinion of such a man as to the character, in the main, of 
deposits he has personally inspected; but, that we must 
maintain he is very far from infallible, and that the argu- 



226 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

ments on which he here rests his conclusion are delusive. 
He seems to go considerably farther than Mr. Prestwick, 
a gentleman regarded as possessing superior qualifications 
for a reliable estimate. "After a careful study of the geo- 
logical relations of this (Somme Yalley) bed ; he," says 
Prof. Owen in his recent work, (Palaeontology,) "refers it 
to the post-pleiocene age ; and to a period anterior to the 
surface assuming its present outline, so far as some of its 
minor features are concerned. " This, it will be perceived, 
is much more general and moderate than Ly ell's "vast 
lapse of ages," etc. Nor does it at all necessarily involve 
an enormous human period. 

In presenting his reasons for inferring from the deposits 
of the Somme Valley an immensely long human term, Lyell 
lays great stress upon "the wearing down of the chalk 
which supplied the broken flints for the formation of so 
much gravel at various heights, sometimes 100 feet above 
the present level of the river, . . . and for the denudation 
which the entire mass of stratified drift has undergone, etc. 
To explain which changes (he) infers considerable oscilla- 
tions of level," etc. 

Now to these several particulars in themselves we 
have not one word of objection to offer. Yet we beg 
leave, most confidently, to demur to their application here 
in evidence of any reliable trace of a prolonged human 
age. And their being so applied by Sir Charles Lyell is, 
and to the reader must, we think, appear, when his atten- 
tion is directed to the facts, one of the most extraordinary 
instances either of unguarded expression, suggesting a seri- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 221 

ous error, or of inconsistent judgment, ever adventured 
by a philosopher of world-wide renown. That there have 
been, in the remote past, mighty and long-continued agen- 
cies operating on these old cliffs of early drift, and upon the 
older chalk that supports them, who can doubt? Agen- 
cies of water — dashing, dissolving, denuding, crushing, 
rounding, and readjusting ancient structures — and agencies 
lifted or lowered, it may well have been, by the internal 
forces supposed. Nor does it in one iota affect the pres- 
ent question, how long all those agencies may have thus 
operated. But is it not marvelous that Lyell should, 
whether intentionally or not, drag them into the human 
period, or thrust it into them, as he has done ? 

In some of the gravel thus anciently and mightily 
scooped, as great flint nodules, out of vast chalk-barriers, 
and crushed into fragments, and then ground, and rolled, 
and polished by resistless power, he finds old stone -imple- 
ments, wrought by human hands, still retaining such dis- 
tinctive marks that not only can their original purposes 
be for the most part discerned, but even some difference 
between the culture of the tribe that produced them and 
that of the Celtic family in general, is inferred, by Lyell 
himself, as by M. De Perthes and others, from their peculiar- 
ities. And yet these implements belong to the age of the 
formation of that gravel ! The venerable and potent energy 
that through ages of strenuous action irresistibly reduced 
it, all that while laid gently deferential and kindly careful 
hands upon them; shielded from assault alike their sub- 
stance and their shape, and kept them unharmed in the 



22S SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR, THE BIBLE. 

quiet resting-places where they had dropped from the 
fainting grasp of their artificers ! Sir Charles Lyell cer- 
tainly does not believe this. Xobody can believe it. And 
strange as it is that so genuinely scientific a man, and one 
usually so careful, should have made so serious a mistake, 
nothing is more certain than that he has here thus erred ; and 
that the clear exhibition of this goes very far toward reducing 
into moderate limits his extreme inferences respecting the age 
of mankind. Can anything be more indubitably evident than 
that, had these human instruments been in existence in that 
region during the extended period of agitating energy sug- 
gested, exposed to all the violent action alleged to have 
worn down the old diluvial cliffs, washed the flints out of 
chalk, crushed them, and rounded them into prodigious piles 
of pebbles, they too must have been indefinitely abraded, 
broken, rolled, and reduced undistinguishably into pebbles 
or paste ? The fact that nothing of the kind has happened 
with them, that not one trace of any such long course of 
rough treatment is left upon their structure or dimensions, 
dispels in an instant the magnificent illusion of the re- 
nowned Englishman's hypothesis as to the age of those 
buried hatchets and of their fashioners, the venerable 
Celts. 

Those instruments, beyond peradventure, had never seen 
the light when the ages of heaving and dashing were roll- 
ing on, supposed by the philosopher. The eyes beneath 
whose gaze they were shaped never surveyed, the hands 
that wrought them never buffeted those continued and 
mighty surges. We need no prophetic voice reaching 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 229 

through the past to tell us this, no authoritative utter- 
ance of some venerated sage of science to affirm it. The 
stones themselves give forth the declaration with a clear- 
ness of statement not to be misunderstood. It is patent in 
the very revelations adduced by Lyell from the gravel pits 
of the Somme Valley. 

Nor is this the only inconsistency in these inferences of the 
great geologist. He supposes the age of the implements 
in question immensely remote, because, moreover, numbers 
of them are buried beneath so many feet of mud, sand, 
clay, etc., and it must take a great while, "in comparison 
with the ages of history and tradition," "for the deposi- 
tion of so much fine sediment, including entire shells, both 
terrestrial and aquatic." Yet there is "nothing that might 
not be due to such river-floods as we have witnessed in 
Scotland during the last half century !" 

But even this is not all. There is, if possible, a still 
stranger self contradiction in these inferences of the eminent 
Briton. He finds those mighty agencies, through so long 
a period, tearing and wearing in this valley, and those 
river-floods tenderly putting to rest little shells in slowly 
settled inclosures of sand — and, coexisting with all this, 
during the same measureless ages imagined, "a tribe of 
savages making a long sojourn in this (identical) region." 
Shaping and depositing their strange implements, with 
the successive ages, just as the floods do their layers of 
mud, and in those ascending beds, now thirty, now seven- 
teen, and now ten feet below what has become the surface 
of our time ! If Sir Charles Lyell does not mean this, his 

20 



230 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

supposition on the point is inconsequential. If he does 
mean it, he seems to endow with very wonderful qualities 
a tribe of early savages, who could witness all those sublim- 
ities, brave all those vicissitudes, and emerging, genera- 
tion after generation, through so many overwhelming floods 
that had been certain destruction to other mortals, could 
cling with undying fondness to the home of their fathers, 
and, spite of all recurring desolations, await there the 
time of their own tardy extinction I 

There is an explanation of all the "circumstances con- 
nected with those old flint instruments, we venture to sug- 
gest, which brings them readily within the moderate period 
commonly accredited as man's past term. They occur, it 
should be noticed, in a low river valley ; a fact which of 
itself indicates that the accumulations are not original 
diluvium or drift of at least the early part of the long 
post-pleiocene age supposed by Lyell, but that they are all 
secondary rearrangements which the river has made of 
those old materials. Suppose the pebbles thus produced 
during the agitations of the earlier part of the drift-period, 
and somewhere near in the deposits of a later division of 
that cycle, collections of relics belonging to the larger mam- 
malia: suppose, also, some old Celtic tribe of a subse- 
quent age, yet of centuries before Ccesar, if you please, to 
have occupied for a considerable time what they deemed a 
secure part of this fertile district, heaping their debris for 
generations in some such way as that of the Indian mound 
in Georgia, referred to by Lyell : then suppose some of 
those unusual seasons to occur, of which repeated instances 



THE AGE OP MANKIND. 231 

are known in modern history, or some such change in the 
river-bed as is now not unfrequently witnessed, and in con- 
sequence floods at various intervals to invade, here the 
human heap, and there the diluvial pile, how immediately 
would the several elements begin to be mingled, scattered, 
and readjusted, precisely as they are found to be in the 
deposits around those low-standing cities on the northeast- 
ern border of the British Channel! 

Nor is this mere supposition. The broad facts of the case 
exhibited in the "Antiquites" of M. De Perthes would seem 
satisfactorily to indicate this as the actual process. 

In the first place, he shows (vol. i. p. 165) that the 
valley- surface about and between the two cities, with trifling 
inequalities, possesses "an average or mean elevation of 
only some two metres (less than seven feet) above the 
present level of the river." 

In the next place, he details a number of circumstances 
which prove, beyond a doubt, that the stream and its bor- 
ders now stand at some appreciable elevation above the 
range they occupied no very great while ago. For in- 
stance, this section exhibits the ascertained condition of 
things near one of the gates of Abbeville. (Vol. i. p. 188.) 

A mere glance at the cut suffices to show a change of a 
good many feet in the relative level of the river and its 
surroundings since the sepultures were deposited in the peat 
d, and especially since the wooden frame-work between./ 
and h was constructed ; and yet the comparatively recent 
age of those sepultures and that frame-work, as will pres- 
ently be seen, is indubitable. 



232 



SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 



Plan of the deposits at Portelette, showing their arrange- 
ment, and the sepultures they contain. 




The arrow indicates the present 
level of the Somme. Depth 
about ten feet. 

a. Alluvial and vegetable earth. 

b. Calcareous tufa, porus and 

friable, containing hard and 
compact masses. 

c. Very fine blue sand. 

d. Peat, containing Celtic se- 



pultures, designated by the 
marks. 
e. Another bed of muddy sand. 
/. Alluvial detritus, rounded si- 
lex, etc. 
g. Foundation chalk-bed. 
Between / and A, open-work 
platforms of rough oak planks 
or beams, trimmed apparently 
with stone instruments. 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 233 

Certain circumstances, indicating how the river floods 
have been quieted in the vicinity of both these cities, so as 
to occasion immense deposits of less weighty matter, are 
brought to notice in an extract quoted (p. 223) from a 
Geological Memoir, by M. Ravin, on the basin of Amiens. 
" It is in the broadest and lowest localities of the Somme 
Valley where the waters were deepest and least agitated, 
in the sites at this day occupied by Abbeville and Amiens, 
that those old bones, etc., are accumulated in the greatest 
number. They have been deposited with the alluvium of 
that epoch, at the mouths of the larger tributaries which 
then emptied into such lakes; at the confluence of the 
Celle with the Somme, on the southwest of Amiens; and 
at that of the Scardon, toward Menchecourt at Abbe- 
ville. 

The rate at which this process of filling up, this exten- 
sive change, has been going on in modern times, is evinced 
by tokens too significant to be misunderstood. One or 
two instances we present in M. De Perthes's own words, 
(vol. ii. p. 126.) "In 1844, when excavations were made 
between the Somme and one of the gates of Abbeville, the 
gate of Macarde, toward constructing there the founda- 
tions of a gasometer, and when a depth of six metres 
(about twenty feet) below the surface of the surrounding 
ground had been reached, in a bed of peat, remains of 
amphorae, (well-known Roman jars,) and other vases of 
Roman or Gallo-Roman origin, were met with. Under this 
peat was a bed of sand, with ashes, charcoal, funeral pot- 

20* 



234 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tery, and many shaped stones." These latter "indicate, 11 
thinks M. De Perthes, perhaps correctly, "a population 
anterior to the Romans, and probably to the Gauls." Nine 
or ten years later, in 1853, as excavations were going on 
in another locality, and had reached a point about seven 
metres (over twenty-three feet) beneath the soil of the 
town, and say eighteen inches below the level of the river, 
the same bed of peat was recognized ; and here, (ibid., 131,) 
"as at the gasometer, many remains of amphorae were dis- 
covered. But what was not there found presented itself in 
this instance, a considerable quantity of that beautiful red 
Roman pottery of which each piece bears the name of the 
potter. Cianvari, ma. Titini, etc., etc. . . . The amphorae 
were of different sizes ; many must have been one metre in 
height, and two in circumference," (over a yard high and 
two feet in diameter.) 

Now with such facts in view, the rationale which we 
have suggested, of the sand and gravel pits containing, 
variously associated, the mammalian remains and the old 
hatchets, etc., seems abundantly more satisfactory than 
the incongruous explanation proposed by Lyell. Especially 
when some additional circumstances are taken into account, 
connected with those ancient bones. "These," says M. 
Baillon, in a letter to M. De Perthes, (vol. i. p. 224,) "are 
first found at the depth of ten or twelve feet in the sands 
of Menchecourt, but they are found in much larger quantity 
at eighteen or twenty feet. Some of them were crushed 
before being buried. Others have the angles rounded, with- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 235 

out doubt because they have been rolled by the waters, 
but they have not been buried as deeply as those which 
have remained entire. These last are disposed at the bot- 
tom of the sandpits." (Just as our explanation would 
suppose, for these would have been the latest of the former 
deposits in the drift beds, nearest the surface, least injured, 
soonest reached and washed out by river floods, and so 
deposited first and unbroken in the Amiens and Abbeville 
basins.) "They are entire, without fracture or friction, and 
it is probable that they were still articulated when thus 
covered over. I have found a hind limb of the rhinoceros, 
the bones of which were still in their ordinary relative 
situation. They must have been joined by their ligaments, 
and even surrounded with muscle at the epoch of their 
burial. The complete skeleton of the same animal lay 
scattered within a short distance." Why these should lie 
at the bottom of the series, on Sir Charles Lyell's theory, 
seems wholly inexplicable. They should rather have been 
broken into minutest fragments, and rolled into tiniest bone 
beads, if not reduced to impalpable powder, and borne off 
irrecoverably by the waters. 

The general relation of the deposits in the sand pits 
may be seen in the annexed section, (M. De Perthes's 
"Antiq.," etc., vol. i. p. 234 ) 



236 



SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 




Y?y?m 




a. Vegetable earth, etc. 

b. Upper bed of silicious pebbles, 

containing parcels of rolled 
chalk fragments, etc. 

c. Brown ferruginous potter's 

clay. 

d. Marly clay, interspersed with 

silicious fragments of white 
surface. 

e. Marly sand, traversed by beds 

of pea-form chalk fragments, 

and silicious grit. 
/. Yellowish clay streaked with 

ochry sand. 
g. Bed of sharp yellow sand, 

rolled chalk fragments, and 

broken shells. 
h. Potter's clay, veined gray and 

yellow, and both pure and 

sandy. 
t. A thin ochry vein. 
k. Alternate beds of gray and 

white sand, and collections 

of shells. 

It is chiefly in this sand that 
the shells and bones are found. 
I. Lower bed of rolled silex. 
™". Sites of discovered stone 
implements. 

The arrow marks the river 
level. 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 237 

On the hypothesis of Lyell, how is it possible to account 
for the occurrence of these stone instruments at depths 
varying so widely as here exhibited ? 

Nor in this view does the idea of M. De Perthes seem 
tenable. His facts, carefully collected through years of 
diligent research, after the manner of Layard at Nineveh, 
and Lepsius in Egypt, are valuable, and entitled to atten- 
tive consideration. But his supposition that an antediluvian 
race shaped those ancient flints, a race here by the deluge 
destroyed and buried, in common with a world of gigantic 
mammifers, appears to be in conflict alike with the dispo- 
sition of these beds and their strange contents, and with 
the general range of facts in all superficial geology. 
Neither does it, to our apprehension, square with the 
scriptural account of the miraculous Noachian flood. 

The universal tradition of such a catastrophe, found 
wherever man now exists, insisted on by this diligent in- 
vestigator, is no doubt a striking confirmation of the scrip- 
tural statement concerning the event in question. And 
some of the traces of water-action on the globe may pos- 
sibly be referred to that occasion. But while it would 
seem from the account that no portion of the human family 
had then so distantly wandered, or, in knowledge, at least, 
quite so far degenerated, it would also appear that the 
Noachian waters arose too gently, remained too briefly, 
and subsided too quietly, to accomplish the abrasions, sepa- 
rations, and accumulations here, as well as elsewhere, wit- 
nessed. The olive leaf (Genesis, viii. 11) speaks instructively 
on this subject, as does the nutriment found by the crea- 



238 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

tures with Noah, when (v. 11) they went forth again 
upon the green earth. That the human race (save one 
family) then perished, together with a vast number of ani- 
mals associated with them, is rendered unquestionable; 
and that the compass of the desolation must have been 
coextensive with human diffusion. But that beyond this 
the brute creation was destroyed, and all the world over- 
whelmed, is a construction of the narrative not necessitated 
by its hyperbolical forms of speech, and distinctly denied 
by many geological facts. That man previously dwelt, 
and was then overwhelmed, and the brute creation with 
him, in Western Europe, can scarcely be credited without 
proof much more substantial than has yet appeared. Still, 
this hypothesis appears on the whole considerably less im- 
probable than that of Sir Charles Lyell. Especially in 
connection with certain other facts it may be well to recall. 
That immense mutations, attended by animal burials on 
an enormous scale, have occurred in that part of the world, 
at no very remote age, there are convincing proofs. To 
some of these reference has been made ; others are found in 
the numberless remains lying in the alluvial silt of the 
Thames Valley, and along the east coast of England, 
which indicate that the British Islands were formerly in- 
habited by multitudes of elephants and other gigantic crea- 
tures, and render it (Mantell, Wonders of Geology, vol. i. 
p. 149,) ''probable that the land of Britain was united to 
the continent many centuries before the Roman advent." 
The time of this separation may perhaps be associated with 
that also indicated in the Isle of Man. The Irish elk, there 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 239 

in skeleton in surprising numbers, tells of a great change 
in the relative extent of land and sea, since such herds of so 
bulky a race could not have subsisted in so limited a dis- 
trict. And the known modern age, presently to be shown, 
to which specimens of this creature may be traced, fur- 
nishes a criterion for determining that the mutations re- 
ferred to occurred within a comparatively moderate period. 
Nor can it be easily, we presume, if at all, proved, that the 
date of those changes was more ancient than the era at 
which the Scriptures, as will be found, allow us to reckon 
the deluge. Although, therefore, so far as time alone is 
concerned, we might adopt this hypothesis, still, for reasons 
already intimated, we do not attribute to those agencies 
and to that epoch the appearances of the Somme Valley. 

The considerations last adduced connect themselves with 
one of the elements in LyelFs time-argument yet to be 
more specifically noticed. His allegation that "the disap- 
pearance of the elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera of 
quadrupeds, now foreign to Europe," "implies avast lapse 
of ages, separating the era in which the Amiens flint in- 
struments were formed, and that of the invasion of Gaul by 
the Romans." 

This assumes as settled by the circumstances, that these 
quadrupeds coexisted with the fashioners of the Abbeville 
flints. Whereas it may be affirmed, we think, with some 
confidence, that such coexistence is anything but proved 
by the case; that the probabilities rather preponderate 
the other way. So that this inference is, perhaps, like the 
others, illusory. 



240 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Bat suppose it otherwise ; let it be admitted here, let it 
be proved, if possible, anywhere, that some of these ex- 
tinct mammalia for a season coexisted with man ; does it 
necessarily throw indefinitely backward the epoch of Adam's 
birth ? Assuredly not ! Why may not certain of these 
creatures have lingered on into the cycle succeeding that 
which was distinctly their own, and to an age that may 
readily be embraced within our received human chronology? 
That theirs was in the main an antecedent period is cer- 
tain. That the meridian of their day had long passed ere 
yet the earth was given in charge to human beings. But 
that their evening was closed before man's morning dawned, 
even as registered in our sacred books, who shall affirm? 
If the idea be well founded, (Mantell,) that "the termina- 
tion of a race, like the death of individuals, may be the 
natural and inevitable result of their organization," the 
disappearance of species and genera may well, under the 
divine laws, proceed, as does individual decay, gradually. 
So that the declining stage of one group might be pro- 
tracted far into the youthful term of a higher race. Indeed 
there are not wanting indications that it may actually have 
been so with some of those very extinct mammalia, that 
instances of their continuance may have occurred up to a 
date within the accredited period of human existence. 

The great Irish elk, for example, just now mentioned, 
though unknown upon earth these many centuries, was, 
there can scarcely be a doubt, in part contemporary with 
the early human population of the British Islands. "Be- 
sides the good state of preservation conspicuous in certain 



THE AGS OF MANKIND. 241 

skeletons taken from marshes, as of Curragh, Ireland, a 
skull of one was discovered in Germany, associated with 
urns and stone hatchets ; and in\ the County of Cork, a 
human body was exhumed from a wet and marshy soil, be- 
neath a bed of peat eleven feet thick, the body in good 
preservation, and enveloped in a deer skin covered with 
hair, which appeared to be that of the gigantic elk. . . . 
Yet beds of gravel and sand containing recent species of 
marine shells, with bones of the Irish elk, have been ob- 
served in the vicinity of Dublin at an elevation of two 
hundred feet above the level of the sea. This extinct 
quadruped, though found in peat bogs and marshes of 
comparatively very recent date, must have been, therefore, 
an inhabitant of Ireland antecedently to some of the last 
changes in the relative position of land and water." (Man- 
tell.) But remains of this creature, thus partially con- 
temporary with Adam's descendants, are also in some 
places " found extensively associated with those of the ex- 
tinct elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, deer, 
bear, and hyena." (Ibid.) Moreover, "with the relics of 
such extinct animals are found those of many species which 
still inhabit England, as the badger, otter, weasel, and of 
others which are known to have been contemporary with 
the earliest British tribes, as the bear, boar, and wolf." 
(Ibid.) Nor is it at all certain (see Sir R. J. Murchison's 
11 Geology of Russia") that all the specimens of the Siberian 
mammoth had passed away before the era usually allowed 
for man's advent. So too with the mastodon and other 
gigantic creatures whose remains have been found associated 

21 



242 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

in comparatively recent deposits in North America : as at 
Bigbone Lick, in Kentucky; in the bogs of Louisiana; on 
the Hudson, in New York, etc. 

"Even, then, if it be admitted, though yet requiring 
proof," as Hitchcock well says, (Smithsonian Contributions, 
vol. ix., art. 3, p. 64,) "that his remains (undisplaced) 
are found with those of such extinct animals, this by no 
means throws back man's origin to what is usually under- 
stood by the drift period ; for many races of animals have 
disappeared since alluvial agencies have been at work." 

This is corroborated by Prof. Owen's later and signifi- 
cant statement, (Palaeontology.) "A future generation 
of geologists may have to record the final disappearance 
of the arctic buffalo, (Ovibos 3Ioschatus.) Remains of 
Ovibos and Rytena show that they were contemporaries of 
Elephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorrhinus. But 
recent discoveries (as in the Somme Yalley, and previously 
at Hoxne in Suffolk,) indicate that in the case of the last 
two extinct quadrupeds, a rude primitive human race may 
have finished the work of extermination begun by antece- 
dent and more general causes." 

From a careful review, therefore, of the whole case on 
which Lyell founds his argument for the extreme antiquity 
of mankind, we submit with deference, but with confidence, 
that his inferences are altogether unsustained; that the 
question as to the age of our race is left very much where 
it was before; and that the probabilities suggested by 
science still remain, that the human term has been about 
what the sacred books, interpreted with neither rigidness on 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 243 

the one hand nor violence on the other, exhibit. With this 
additional positive testimony, — the instances adduced cor- 
roborate all others in regard to the great truth originally 
set forth with exclusive and characteristic prominence in 
the Scriptures, that, in the language of Professor Owen, 
" man is the latest as he is the highest creature known to 
have been called into being on this planet." 

Here, however, we meet another and kindred question 
brought to notice in Sir Charles LyelPs address of Sep- 
tember, 1859, and one which bears, as upon almost all 
departments of thought and inquiry, so especially upon the 
controversy respecting the age of mankind, — the question 
whether men and other living beings around them are 
really creatures at all, in any appreciable or practical 
sense; whether they are not rather developments, which 
nature has somehow in the course of countless ages effected, 
by the slow operation of her laws changing some ancient 
low organic form, equally unknown in its character and 
origin, into, first, fish, then reptiles, then birds, then mam- 
malian brutes, and finally into human beings ! 

To this latter hypothesis, discredited alike by the require- 
ments of inductive philosophy, by the established laws of 
evidence, by the moral instincts, the individual aspirations, 
and the social interests of mankind, and by all the sacred 
realities of religion, Lyell — incredible as it would have 
appeared, in direct conflict with his own unretracted and 
unanswered arguments, under some strange influence — has 
permitted himself to lend at least the qualified support of 
his great scientific name. Alluding to the since published 



244 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

work of Darwin, on the "Origin of Species,'' which had 
then been only in manuscript submitted to his inspection, 
he, in the address referred to, used this language: "On 
this difficult and mysterious subject," (why so difficult and 
mysterious, we ask, except on the assumptions of atheistic 
materialism?) "a work will very shortly appear, by Mr. 
Charles Darwin, the result of twenty years of observation 
and experiments in zoology, botany, and geology, by which 
he has been led to the conclusion, that those powers of 
nature which give rise to the races and permanent varieties 
in animals and plants are the same as those which, in much 
longer periods, produce species, and, in a still longer series 
of ages, give rise to differences in generic rank. He 
appears to me to have succeeded, by his investigations 
and reasonings, in throwing a flood of light on many classes 
of phenomena connected with the affinities, geographical 
distribution, and geologic succession of organic beings, for 
which no other hypothesis has been able, or has even 
attempted to account." 

In this brief and cautious statement, Darwin's theory, 
now before the public, is perhaps as adequately represented 
as was to be expected in so partial a notice. And yet from 
it the reader would gather not only a very imperfect, but a 
most erroneous idea of that theory. In the first place, to 
an attentive student of Darwin's volume, it is clear beyond 
all question that his system, instead of being a "conclu- 
sion to which he has been led by twenty years of observa- 
tion and experiments," etc., was long ago with him a fore- 
gone conclusion, to the ingenious defense of which he has 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 245 

for years devoted the resources of an active, and, in one 
direction, well-furnished mind ; an original belief, or abstract 
conception, like a hundred others in the history of opinion, 
assumed as true, and then acted on as a governing influ- 
ence in the mind, toward reducing into a system accordant 
with itself facts and phenomena of every kind, how incon- 
sistent soever with the assumption ; — a case in principle 
not unlike Aristotle's labored ratiocination in defense of the 
old idea of the incorruptibility of the heavens. In the 
next place, the monstrous character of Darwin's " conclu- 
sion," " hypothesis," or whatever it may be called, would 
hardly, save by the most practiced minds, be imagined 
from Lyell's carefully-worded account and approval. This 
is the summing up of the theorist himself, (p. 419, nearly 
the last page of his book:) "I believe that animals have 
descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and 
plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would 
lead me one step farther, namely, to the belief that all ani- 
mals and plants have descended from some one prototype. 

I should infer that probably all the organic beings 

which have ever lived on this earth have descended from 
some one primordial form, into which life was first 
breathed"!! 

The blackness of atheism here seems relieved by one 
little ray of light, let in through the figurative phrase 
'life breathed into the one primordial form;" but exam- 
ination shows that it is only a delusive phosphorescent 
glimmer mistaken for heaven's own beam. That "life 

21* 



246 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

breathed," is only a figure; not supposed to represent any 
real occurrence in the early time, but only serving to 
occupy attention and mislead thought. Else why its ap- 
plication to the "one primordial form," assumed as the 
progenitor of the lowest class of vegetable existences, no 
less than of the half-reasoning brutes and the heaven- 
aspiring intelligences by which our planet has been peo- 
pled ? 

Still, we do not mean to charge absolute atheism on Mr. 
Darwin or his theory. It is due to him to recognize the 
fact that he does once or twice refer to a Deity as very 
remotely concerned in the processes of the universe. And 
of the old scheme, which he issues in renovated form, it 
should be conceded that it does not necessarily involve the 
total negation of a Great First Cause, since it is undenia- 
ble, as has been urged, that " God might as certainly have 
originated the human species by a law of development, as 
he maintains it by a law of development." 

But if not absolutely, the hypothesis is at least relatively 
and practically atheistic, and annihilative of some of the 
most important beliefs entertained by men. To this for a 
moment we direct attention, and then one or two consider- 
ations will be presented, going to show how obviously this 
volume, notwithstanding its high indorsement, is in the 
truest sense unscientific ; how it virtually repudiates the 
sound inductive method of inquiry, and for ascertained fact 
substitutes imagined possibility, ingenious speculation, and 
an enormous use of the vast unknown. 

That any theory, whatever its scientific pretensions, tends 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 24? 

to the destruction of those essential convictions which lie 
at the basis of individual character, social order, and 
domestic happiness, is a consideration that ought assuredly 
to discredit it, and must be regarded as adequate primary 
proof of its being utterly untrue. Let us see how it is 
with Darwin's development idea, indorsed by Lyell in con- 
nection with his impression that savage man appeared on 
earth "a vast series of ages" ago. 

"If," as has been well argued, " during a period so vast 
as to be scarce expressed by figures, the creatures now hu- 
man have been rising by almost infinitesimals — from com- 
pound microscopic cells, minute vital globules within glob- 
ules, begot by electricity on dead gelatinous matter," as 
former developmentarians held, or "from some one primor- 
dial form," at the unknown lowest point of the organic 
scale, as Darwin, with LyelPs sanction, now holds— until 
they have at length become the men and women whom we 
see around us, we must hold either the monstrous belief 
that all the vitalities, whether those of monads or of mites, 
of fishes or of reptiles, of birds or of beasts, are individually 
and inherently immortal and undying, or that human souls 
are not so. The difference between the dying and undy- 
ing — between the spirit of the brute that goeth downward, 
and the spirit of the man that goeth upward — is not a dif- 
ference infinitesimally, or even atomically small. It pos- 
sesses all the breadth of the eternity to come, and is an 
infinitely great difference. It cannot, if one may so ex- 
press it, be shaded off by infinitesimals or atoms; for it is 
a difference which, as there can be no class of beings inter- 



248 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

mediate in their nature between the dying and the undy- 
ing, admits not of gradation at all. What mind, regulated 
by the ordinary principles of human belief, can possibly 
hold that every one of the thousand vital points whbh 
swim in a drop of stagnant water, are inherently fitted to 
maintain their individuality throughout eternity ? Or how 
can it be rationally held that a mere progressive step, in 
itself no greater or more important than that effected by 
the addition of a single brick to a house in the building 
state, or of a single atom to a body in the growing state, 
could ever have produced immortality ? And yet, if the 
spirit of a monad or of a mollusk be not immortal, then 
must there either have been a point in the history of the 
species at which a dying brute — differing from its offspring 
merely by an inferiority of development, represented by a 
few atoms, perhaps by a single atom — produced an undy- 
ing man, or man in his present state must be a mere ani- 
mal, possessed of no immortal soul, and as irresponsible 
for his actions to the God before whose bar he is, in conse- 
quence, never to appear, as his presumed relatives and 
progenitors, the beasts that perish. Nor will it do to 
attempt escaping from the difficulty, by alleging that God, 
at some certain link in the chain, might have converted a 
mortal creature into an immortal existence, by breathing 
into it "a living soul;" seeing that a renunciation of any 
such direct interference on the part of Deity in the work of 
creation forms the prominent and characteristic feature of 
the scheme, nay, that it constitutes the very nucleus round 
which the scheme has originated. Thus, though the devel- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 249 

opment theory be not atheistic, it is at least practically 
tantamount to atheism. For, if man be a dying creature, 
restricted in his existence to the present scene of things, 
what does it really matter to him, for any one moral pur- 
pose, whether there be a God or no ? If, in reality, on the 
same religious level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are 
by nature atheists — a nature most properly coupled with 
irresponsibility — to what one practical purpose should he 
know or believe in a God whom he, as certainly as they, 
is never to meet as his Judge ? or why should he square 
his conduct by the requirements of the moral code, farther 
than a low and convenient expediency may choose to 
demand V 

Fatal as the hypothesis appears in this view, it is in 
other aspects fraught with mischiefs scarcely secondary, 
though of a kind calculated more signally, if possible, to 
expose its absurdity. The cattle on which he feeds, if not 
a man's brethren, are, on this theory, at least his first 
cousins, and the trees he fells at pleasure or the plants he 
consumes, his kindred, removed only one additional step. 
Against the latter he may without a thought whet the axe 
and the scythe, and the knife against the former without a 
pang ! Why should the petty circumstance of kinship a 
trifle nearer give men impunity from similar treatment? 
What harm — what so great wrong, to knock one on the 
head ? To cut him down ? Nay, if pleasant to the palate 
of some dainty epicure, to convert his muscle into steak 
and surloin? The dignity, safety, or satisfaction of hu- 
man existence were somewhat questionable, could Sir 



250 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Charles Lyell's authority, backing Mr. Darwin's ingenuity, 
make this doctrine the ruling belief of the world ! 

Respecting the scientific relations of a scheme involving 
moral issues so portentous, its history is more than a little 
significant. The hypothesis is very far from being, as 
seems intimated in Lyell's brief statement, a purely 
original and very fresh emanation from the mind of so 
competent a naturalist as Mr. Darwin. In some of its 
accompaniments, as presented by him, it is of course new, 
and his own ; but in characteristic idea it is as old as some 
of the oldest speculative systems of the world. Epicurus, 
following, perhaps, earlier dreamers, (see Cud worth's In- 
tellectual System, chap. ii. sec. 22, and Fenelon's Lives of 
Ancient Philosophers,) maintained that "the sun, gradually 
warming the fat and nitrous early earth, soon covered it 
with herbage and shrubs ; there also began to rise on the 
surface of the ground a great number of small tumors like 
mushrooms, which, having in time come to maturity, the skin 
burst and there came forth little animals, which, by-and-by 
retiring from the place where they had been produced, be- 
gan to respire;" and so in process of time our globe was 
peopled ! Rather more than a hundred years ago the 
notion was reproduced by Maillet, in his Telliamed, a sort 
of scientific romance, characterized as "a popular work, as 
wild and amusing as a fairy tale," addressed to the lively 
French mind, then agitated by the demoralizing influences 
transmitted from the age of the Fourteenth to that of the 
Fifteenth Louis, and by the latter even exaggerated, as if 
in preparation for the convulsion of the next half century. 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 251 

In preparing bis readers for the theory of transmutation of 
species, Maillet insisted that the change from marine to 
terrestrial vegetation amounted to very little, and in proof 
made his Indian philosopher affirm that "the fishermen of 
Marseilles are in the habit of dragging up from the sea 
flowers colored like the rose and fruits flavored like the 
grape." Fifty years later, the celebrated Jean Baptiste 
Antoine Pierre Monet, Chevalier De Lamarck, under simi- 
lar influences, but with larger though still very incomplete 
knowledge, issued to the same people, while yet in the whirl 
of their revolution, the notorious development hypothesis, 
which has since borne, and will probably, whatever varying 
phases it may assume, continue to bear his name. Not only 
was he necessarily ignorant of some of the governing facts 
in the history of organic beings which geological research 
has brought to light since his time, but, in common with 
Maillet and others, he speculated on the supposition, now 
abundantly disproved, of a primitive universal ocean. " That 
the philosopher who perfected the development dream occu- 
pied this position, is a fact," as Hugh Miller has convinc- 
ingly urged, " sufficient in itself to show how certainly it is 
indeed but a dream," and nothing approaching a genuine 
evolution of inductive science. With auother generation 
came the " Physio-Philosophy," etc. of the German Pro- 
fessor Oken, extending Lamarck's system. It was com- 
posed, the author alleges, (see preface to translation,) "in 
a kind of inspiration" and "modified," as he confesses, 
"in its arrangement of plants and animals," to suit the ex- 
igencies of the development scheme, "just as discoveries 



252 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

find anatomical investigations rendered some other position 
of the objects a matter of necessity." This was succeeded 
some years ago by the plausible and popular though anony- 
mous "Vestiges of Creation," the false assumptions, un- 
sustained pretensions, and, on the whole, shallow sophistry 
of which, in common with those of all the existing works 
of the class, were so unanswerably exposed by Hugh Miller 
in his "Footprints of the Creator." 

The scientific claims of Mr. Darwin's developmentism 
would certainly seem to be rather poorly sustained by its 
antecedents. Nor is its relation to the general judgment 
of leading scientific mind, past and present, less significant. 
The author, though by adducing the "grave doubts" now 
"entertained" by Sir Charles Lyell, and otherwise, attempt- 
ing to diminish the force of the fact, is obliged to admit 
(p. 271) that "all the most eminent palaeontologists, 
namely, Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz, Barrande, Falconer, E. 
Forbes, etc., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, 
Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often vehe- 
mently (?) maintained the immutability of species." 

This, however, well-nigh conclusive as it is, may not be 
sufficient toward the truth we wish to exhibit as fairly as 
our limits allow. A glance, then, at the system in its latest 
phase becomes proper. 

That Mr. Darwin's discussion is skillful and able, no in- 
telligent reader will deny. Indeed the fact is patent, from 
the impression which even in manuscript it made on such 
a mind as Sir Charles Lyell's. Already known as an 
extensive inquirer and suggestive writer, the author has 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 253 

unquestionably brought to the advocacy of an old idea new 
and large resources of knowledge as a naturalist and of in- 
genuity as a theorist. Hence, of course, he has in several 
respects improved upon the doctrines of his predecessors. 
The machinery of the system he has considerably varied. 
And some of the difficulties, to which previous advocates 
had exposed the cause by claiming to know too much, he 
sagaciously avoids, partly by an adroit use of manifold in- 
formation, and partly, where this fails, by a still more adroit 
resort to the boundless and yet ever-at-hand unknown. 

The main-spring of the machinery constructed by this 
ingenious author is what he designates "natural selection." 
It is represented as composed of two elements, viz., variabil- 
ity in living organisms, and a general struggle for existence. 
Thus, (pp. 63-17:) "As more individuals are produced 
than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a 
struggle for existence, either one individual with another of 
the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, 

or with the physical conditions of life How will this 

act in regard to variation ? . . . Can it be thought improb- 
able that variations, useful in some way to each being in 
the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes 
occur in the course of thousands of generations ? If such 
do occur, can we doubt, remembering that many more indi- 
viduals are born than can possibly survive, that individuals 
having any advantage, however slight, over others would 
have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their 
kind ? On the other hand, we may be sure that any varia- 
tion in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. 

22 



254 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection 
of injurious variations, I call natural selection." 

Such is the principle of the apparatus. How does it 
work ? By the one exclusive law of protection to the in- 
dividual. Every consideration of ends more remote, of 
relation to other purposes, of connection with a great 
providential plan, of the bearing of what are known as 
final causes, is by the nature of the case shut out ; and 
accordingly by the pro pounder of the system wholly re- 
jected. Each living thing is what it is, or very slowly 
changes from what it was to something else, solely under a 
chance variation, which is perpetuated exclusively by its 
becoming available for the continuance of individual life in 
the ceaseless strife of being. If, then, other ruling pur- 
poses in the relations of any organism can be satisfactorily 
shown, the theory is not only discredited, but well-nigh dis- 
proved. This is distinctly admitted. Reference is made 
(p. ITT) to those who consider extreme and deceptive the 
idea that " every detail of structure has been produced for 
the good of its possessor;" "who believe that very many 
structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, 
(or for his benefit,) or for mere variety," or for some other 
general end. And the author adds, "this doctrine, if 
true, would be fatal to my theory." Now we press home 
the question, is it not true ? At any rate, a thousand times 
more satisfactorily sure than the antagonist scheme? Can 
considerate men, in their right minds, be made to believe 
that the nutritious qualities of our harvest grains are mere 
accidental results of a struggle for life through uncounted 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 255 

ages on the part of cereal plants, having no reference to 
the supply of bread for human kind? That the delicious 
fruits clustering in vineyard and orchard are only similar 
chance products, simply happening to be pleasant to the 
taste, constituted, however, not at all with reference to 
that, but exclusively on account of their helping to per- 
petuate the tree ? That the exquisite grace of the rose 
and fragrance of the violet are, in like manner, nothing 
but casualties, continued solely through the circumstance 
that they, in some inconceivable way, aid against a thou- 
sand foes the plants that bear them ? May it not be quite 
as rationally held, that coal and iron, with all their won- 
derful adaptations to human comfort and culture, are but 
hap-hazard productions, packed away and preserved alone 
because of some hidden influence limited to those sub- 
stances ? Or that the gorgeous coloring of morning and 
evening vapors and the matchless beauty of the rainbow 
exist partly by chance and partly for the good of the 
clouds ? 

The positive supports of such a system are a few truths 
generalized greatly beyond knowledge or probability. 
As, for instance, the fact that the universe is regulated 
by law — that considerable variations, often by mankind 
turned to account, occur in species — that naturalists are 
sometimes puzzled to determine between specific differ- 
ences and those which belong only to varieties — that dis- 
tricts peculiarly insulated have occasionally been found 
with a peculiar flora and fauna — and that there is a singu- 
lar parallelism between the phenomena of embriology and 



256 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the general order of advance in animated nature. Con- 
siderations of this character have of course from the first 
constituted the staple of developmentarians. And though 
abundantly shown to furnish no adequate ground for their 
hypothesis, they are still presented as its foundation. 
Without pausing to consider them, we direct attention to 
the negative aspect of the scheme, — the difficulties which 
are acknowledged to lie in its way. 

Respecting these, Mr. Darwin even admits, (p. 154,) 
"some of them are so grave, that to this day I can never 
reflect on them without being staggered." "But," he adds, 
as the utmost to be yet ventured, "to the best of my judg- 
ment,, the greater number are only apparent, and those that 
are real, are not, I think, fatal to my theory." Let it be 
considered only as thus stated by paternal partiality, simply 
that opposing facts are just "not fatal" to the doctrine, it 
is at least clear, that, after all thus far said in its behalf, 
any claim for the theory, as approximating a conclusion of 
•science, is wholly inadmissible. 

Two of these difficulties we adduce by way of illustration, 
viz.: First, the readily occurring reflection that transitional 
instances might be expected to abound among organic 
forms, if the doctrine be true; and, second, the fact that 
numerous species — some of them so elevated in structure, 
that Hugh Miller was able, with a few of their relics, to 
slay the philosophies of Lamarck, Oken, and the "Ves- 
tiges," as Samson did a thousand Philistines with an 
ass's jaw — are traced in the lowest fossil-bearing strata 
of the geological scale. Are these objections removed? 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 257 

Not at all. But the hypothesis is carried round them 
through the trackless region of the infinite unknown. Tran- 
sitional form ? Oysters converted into sturgeon ! turnips 
into toads ! butterflies into nightingales ! snakes into grey- 
hounds! oxen into elephants! and ourang-outangs into 
men ! Why, it takes millions of ages to do all this ; and 
since rational beings, though partially developed an im- 
mense while ago, have existed for a period compared with 
the whole life-term but as yesterday, it is of course im- 
possible that we should really know anything about these 
changes. One would, however, suppose Mr. Darwin's 
accidental variations and "natural selection" might have 
scope for some appreciable influence in species spread over 
millions of acres of space as readily as in those descending 
through millions of years of time. Yet the beetles and 
bulls of the remotest quarter of the earth are to-day not 
one whit more like eagles and lions, or any other species, 
than were those which the Egyptians embalmed forty or 
fifty centuries ago. But if this is to be reckoned nothing, 
how with the geological ages ? Are there any cases of 
transmutation registered in the rocks ? Not one has been 
found. Why not, if the truth be as Mr. Darwin sup- 
poses ? Because the record, he answers, is too imperfect. 
This is the case in few words, (p. 246 :) "Geology assuredly 
does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain ; 
and this is, perhaps, the most obvious and gravest ob- 
jection which can be urged against my theory. The 
explanation lies, I believe, in the extreme imperfection of 
the geological record." 

22* 



258 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Here, then, the whole inquiry loses itself in unrelieved 
darkness, through which there is no groping, save boldly 
by guess. 

Nor is it otherwise with "the allied and even graver 
difficulty/' (p. 268,) "the sudden appearance in the lowest 
known fossiliferous rocks of numerous species." The sup- 
position is ventured, that the dawn of life was inconceivably 
earlier, and that "during vast ages preceding the Silurian, 
the world swarmed with living creatures." But to the 
question, w r hy we do not find records of those immense 
primordial periods? the confession is returned, "I can 
give no satisfactory answer. . . . The case at present must 
remain inexplicable. ... To show that it may hereafter 
receive some explanation, I will give the following hypo- 
thesis." And the possible or conceivable is again ex- 
plored. 

Such is the scheme. Theory built upon supposition, 
inference supported by hypothesis, — till a structure is 
devised that shall obliterate moral responsibility, destroy 
all the more elevated sentiments of humanity, and convert 
the world into a great menagerie, subject only to laws of 
life. Dr. Johnson's severe but just censure of speculation 
thus conducted may well be here brought to mind. "He 
who will determine against that which he knows, because 
there may be something which he knows not — he that 
can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged 
certainty — is not to be admitted among reasonable 
beings." 

Palaeontology, however, and geology are not the only 



THE AGE OP MANKIND. 259 

sciences which afford information on the question before 
us. There is also a registry derived from the heavens, 
which may aid us toward some approximate solution of 
our problem. Astronomy furnishes, at least indirectly, 
one standard by which, generally, if not definitely, to 
measure the probable age of mankind. 

Laplace tells us, in his "Systeme du Monde," that "the 
Chinese are, of all people, those whose annals offer the 
most ancient observations which we can employ in astron- 
omy. The first eclipses which they mention can serve 
only for chronology, on account of the vague manner in 
which they are described. But those eclipses show that at 
the epoch of the Emperor Tao, some two thousand years 
before our era, astronomy was thus cultivated in China as 
the basis of religious ceremonies. The first useful Chinese 
observations belong to about eleven hundred years before 
our era." 

"The earliest Chaldean observations transmitted are 
eclipses of the moon, observed at Babylon, T 19-20 before 
our era." 

"We have very few authentic documents relating to the 
astronomy of the Egyptians. . . . The astronomers of Alex- 
andria were forced to recur to Chaldean observations, 
though some time previously Thales, Pythagoras, etc. had 
been attracted to Egypt by the reputation of its priests for 
astronomical and other knowledge." 

"The Indian tables suppose an astronomy considerably 
advanced, but everything leads us to suppose they are not 
of such high antiquity. The impossibilty of the general 



260 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

conjunction which they require, proves that they have been 
constructed in modern times." 

With these declarations of a philosopher of the past 
age, whose position in his department remains without ap- 
proach to any claim of rivalry, may be associated a state- 
ment recently attributed to a gentleman of our country 
who has won for himself a distinguished name among exist- 
ing practical astronomers. The papers have just announced, 
as lately affirmed by Professor Mitchell, in one of his lec- 
tures : " He had not long since met, in the City of St. Louis, 
a man of great scientific attainments, who, for forty years 
had been engaged in Egypt in deciphering the hieroglyphics 
of the ancients. This gentleman had stated to him that he 
had lately unraveled the inscriptions upon the coffin of a 
mummy now in the London museum, and that in them, by 
the aid of previous observations, he had discovered the key 
to all the astronomical knowledge of the Egyptians. The 
zodiac, with the exact position of the planets, was de- 
lineated on this coffin, and the date to which they pointed 
was the autumnal equinox in the year IT 22 before Christ, 
or nearly thirty-six hundred years ago. Professor Mitchell 
employed his assistants to ascertain the exact positions of 
the heavenly bodies belonging to our solar system on the 
equinox of that year, (1722 B.C.:) and to his astonish- 
ment, on comparing the result with the statement of his 
scientific friend, already referred to, it was found that on 
the 7th October, 1722 B.C., the moon and planets had 
occupied the exact points in the heavens marked upon the 
coffin in the London museum. " 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 261 

This, if reliable, both confirms Laplace's allusion to early 
astronomical attainments in Egypt, defective as they were 
in a later age, and shows a striking correspondence between 
the times of the earliest known observations there and in 
China. 

If to these statements be added the significant fact, that, 
since the unknown age when our signs of the zodiac, and the 
constellations with which they then corresponded, received 
the names they bear, the retrograde motion of the equi- 
noctial points upon the ecliptic, which is at the rate of 
about an entire circuit in twenty-five thousand years, has 
caused a recession of the signs from their constellations of 
only about thirty degrees, answering to a period of a little 
over two thousand years, the evidence is conclusive that 
astronomical records are of very limited antiquity. 

The bearing of this conclusion upon our immediate 
inquiry is obvious. It is not to be believed that the mag- 
nificent spectacle of the heavens, so peculiarly resplendent 
over the plains of Chaldea, Egypt, and India, could long 
have remained without special notice by human creatures. 
The ever-varying and impressive phenomena exhibited in 
those serene skies must have attracted the attention of 
rational beings within a moderate age after their establish- 
ment in countries so situated. Nor is it much more likely 
that observation, once begun, could have proceeded for any 
protracted period, without some effort, however rude, to- 
ward registering the result for subsequent use. Such efforts, 
again, could scarcely fail, in a moderate series of genera- 
tions, to exhibit defects in the methods employed, and sug- 



262 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

gest improvements, which should issue in a system capable 
of being transmitted to after-ages. The age, therefore, at 
which astronomical records begin to be thus transmitted is 
no insignificant index of the age at which the people, 
handing them down, became established. And the general 
agreement of that record-age, among the widely separated 
nations mentioned by Laplace, seems not a little to favor 
this conclusion. It is, undoubtedly, a fact of some im- 
portant meaning, that the early astronomical notices, 
handed down in China and Babylon should be dated 
within about four centuries of each other; and that those 
transmitted in the venerable chronicles of India should be 
found, when adequately sifted, to correspond, perhaps, as 
nearly with such as have been preserved among the mys- 
terious monuments of the Kile. 

Not to make this era of astronomical records an ap- 
proximate measure for the whole past term of human 
existence, to suppose that men could have looked upon the 
skies for hundreds of centuries, without having curiosity 
quickened into observation, and observation preserved in 
records, would imply a degree of intelligence in primitive 
man scarcely above that of the very brutes. Indeed, a 
process of development is involved in the supposition, 
which agrees only with the exploded speculations of La- 
marck, and the " Yestiges of Creation ;" or with the scarcely 
less anti-inductive as well as morally destructive theory of 
Mr. Darwin. 

That all reliable tradition accords with the positive in- 
dications thus gathered from two leading departments of 



THE AGE OF 3IANKIND. 263 

science, is an additional circumstance entitled to its own 
weight. The Bible excepted, there is not, as every reader 
knows, a written history in the world reaching back three 
thousand years. Nor does the creative genius of Homer, 
from his distant position, venture to deal with events beyond 
that term. The oldest inscription ascertained by Layard, 
Hincks, and Rawlinson, at Nineveh, ascends only to 1250 
before Christ ; and Manetho himself, with all his extrava- 
gances, does not pretend to claim for the Egyptian empire 
an origin earlier than about 35 70 years before Alexander. 
Still considerably less than six thousand years before our 
time. 

The moderate human period thus concurrently indicated 
by geology, astronomy, and history, derives additional con- 
firmation from the known course of development of the 
leading nations, within the historical period, in numbers, 
intelligence, and social culture. No unprejudiced minjd, 
clearly discerning that general progress during one. or two 
thousand years, can readily be persuaded that the ancestors 
of these branches of the human family could have lain in 
darkness, feebleness, and stagnation, for uncounted antece- 
dent ages. 

Nor, in this view, apart from any question of Scripture 
chronology, and even supposing his free interpretation of 
its earlier data admissible, does Biinsen's inference, (vol. iv. 
p. 12, etc.) from what he considers indications contained 
in the development of language, seem at all satisfactory, 
that " about ten millenia before our era are demanded for 



264 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the Noachian period, and for the beginning of our race 
another ten thousand years." 

The conclusion reached in these several ways is, however, 
but a general one. A few decades of centuries are indi- 
cated as summing the generations since man appeared 
upon earth ; but specifically how many, is not even sug- 
gested. There is no token in the skies or the earth, none 
in legendary or monumental lore, that points decisively to 
the birthday of our race. No guidance but that of Scrip- 
ture can conduct us to the dawn of time, as related to our- 
selves. Turn we now, therefore, to the sacred books, to 
learn what they teach as to the entire age of our species. 

To those who have given no special attention to the 
early chronology of the Bible, it may seem an easy task to 
obtain from them a solution of our problem. But further 
examination will soon satisfy them that there are perplex- 
ities in the case, they had not supposed : real difficulties, 
which have long exercised the genius and learning of Chris- 
tendom, and which can scarcely yet, if they ever may, be 
satisfactorily solved. 

It is in reference to some of these difficulties that we in- 
troduce the researches of Bunsen and Lepsius. Not that 
their views or conclusions seem to us altogether unobjec- 
tionable, but because their works on the subject are the 
most recent and able known to us; because they bring 
criticism to bear upon the questions at issue, in its scien- 
tific rather than its theological aspects; because they 
furnish from the old registries of Egypt some tests, for the 
time-measures of the Bible, not heretofore accessible ; and 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 265 

because they have conducted their investigations in a spirit 
of reverence as well as of freedom. "With reverence and 
freedom must science be pursued/ 7 says Lepsius, in dedi- 
cating to Biinsen his "Chronology of the Egyptians.' 7 
"Reverence for everything that is venerable, sacred, noble, 
great, and approved ; freedom, wherever truth and a con- 
viction of it are to be obtained and expressed. Where 
the latter is wanting, there fear and hypocrisy will exist ; 
where the former, insolence and presumption will luxuriate 
in science as in life." 

In justice to the subject as well as to them, we must 
permit these eminent men to present somewhat in detail 
their own views. 

"There is, probably," says Biinsen, (Egypt's Place in 
Universal History, vol. ii. p. 160,) "no subject upon 
which, during these two thousand years, so much talent and 
learning have been expended, by the most intellectual 
nations of the earth, Greeks and Byzantines, Romans, 
Germans, and their kindred races, as upon the solution 
of the several chronological questions connected with 
Egyptian and Jewish history." And this he explains by a 
most important remark, which may suggest instructive 
reflections concerning the providential purpose of the ex- 
isting form of Scripture history. Human culture has been 
incalculably promoted by the investigation of great issues 
involved in the structure of biblical narrative. And to 
stimulate intellectual enterprise in such directions was, 
doubtless, part of the purpose for which difficulties were 
permitted to enter as incidental elements of the sacred 

23 



266 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

record. "We must not forget," continues Biinsen, "that 
to the progress of enlightened culture at every period of 
Christianity, and its effectual resistance to the opposing 
influence of barbarism, a far deeper and more comprehen- 
sive range of critical research is indispensable than was 
required at any period of the ancient world. This neces- 
sity arises not only from the more advanced state of uni- 
versal history, but more especially from the fact, that the 
research of every Christian period must come to a previous 
understanding with a tradition, which, in itself essentially 
historical, is also of standard importance in universal his- 
tory. We must therefore endeavor, by comparing sacred 
with profane history, on the one hand, and with the laws 
of reason on the other, to find a common basis for recon- 
ciling its principles of truth with the world and with 
science. It was this consideration which first opened to 
Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine, the 
philosophy of history, with more enlarged views of general 
chronology." 

Then, in order to justify himself, under the acknowledged 
difficulties with which the items of Scripture chronology are 
invested, — by certain disagreeing numbers in the Hebrew, 
Samaritan, and Septuagint texts, by the many various 
readings of ancient manuscripts in regard to numerals, 
and by the apparent conflict between such enumerations as 
those of 1 Kings, vi. 1, which makes the fourth year of 
Solomon only four hundred and eighty years after the 
Exodus, and Acts, xiii. 20, which assigns four hundred and 
fifty years to the Judges alone up to Samuel, — for thor- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 26T 

oughly examining the subject, "in a spirit of reverence as 
well as of liberty," the learned critic thus proceeds: — 

" Whoever adopts as a principle that chronology is a 
matter of revelation, is precluded from giving effect to any 
doubt that may cross his path, as involving a virtual 
abandonment of his faith in revelation. He must be pre- 
pared not only to deny the existence of contradictory 
statements, but to fill up chasms; however irreconcilable 
the former may appear, by the aid of philology and his- 
tory, however unfathomable the latter. He who, on the 
other hand, neither laelieves in a historical tradition as to 
the immortal existence of man, nor admits a historical 
and chronological element in revelation, will either con- 
temptuously dismiss the inquiry, or, by prematurely reject- 
ing its more difficult elements, fail to discover those threads 
of the research which lie beneath the unsightly and time- 
worn surface, and which yet may prove the thread of 
Ariadne." 

"The ground taken up in this work is one of exclusively 
historical research, but entered upon with a deep feeling 
of the respect due to the general chronological statements 
of Scripture, which have been considered, during so many 
centuries, as forming the groundwork of religious faith, 
and are even at the present moment intimately connected 
with the Christian faith. It will, therefore, still remain 
our safest method, starting from the assumption that the 
centre of revelation is of a historical character, to admit 
as established the truth of all facts in the civil history of 
the Jews, however remotely they may be connected with 



268 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

revealed religious truths, until the contrary has been 
demonstrated. But historical science neither can, nor will, 
in any such case, permit the exclusion or obstruction of 
critical research. " 

Pursuing, therefore, such research, Biinsen finds that 
from the dedication of Solomon's temple, "all the Scrip- 
ture data accord in the most satisfactory manner with the 
traditions and contemporary monuments of Egypt." But, 
"beyond the building of the temple the continuous narrative 
of Scripture ceases, and consequently here also ceases the 
up to this point reasonable harmong in the chronological 
system of the critics. And we have two great periods to 
pass through, in which the Jewish and Egyptian chro- 
nology must be compared; and the pivots of these two 
periods are nothing less than the pivots of the history of 
Egypt, and perhaps of the world." These two periods 
are from Solomon to Moses, and from Moses to Abraham. 
With regard to them he examines minutely Judges, Gen- 
esis, and other sacred books, arriving at last at this con- 
clusion: "]N"o systematic chronological tradition was in 
existence for the times prior to Solomon, and that the 
general sums total met with in 1 Kings, vi. 1, etc., must 
be considered as matters of adjustment and not of tra- 
dition." 

By applying similar processes to still more remote times 
in the biblical narrative, the erudite Chevalier adjusts them 
to the extended periods indicated by Manetho and the 
Egyptian monuments. 

Upon certain of these points we presently shall have 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 269 

something to say. First, however, the other accomplished 
Prussian must be permitted to speak for himself. 

In full agreement with Bunsen, he is, after careful ex- 
amination, satisfied that Manetho and the Egyptian monu- 
ments are to be credited for the existence of an Egyptian 
monarchy, as far back as 3893 years B.C. Notwithstanding 
that the estimate of Archbishop Usher, founded chiefly on 
an arrangement of the Masoretic Hebrew numbers, allows 
only 2348 years B.C. for the time of the deluge, and the 
calculation of Dr. Jackson, based on an adjustment of the 
figures of the Septuagint, admits but 3160 years, and a 
recent computation by Dr. Seyffarth, (Summary of Recent 
Discoveries in Biblical Chronology, etc., 1859, — S. E. 
Quarterly Review, April, I860,) based upon a different 
adjustment of the Septuagint, and upon certain alleged 
astronomical data, assigns at furthest not more than 344T 
years B.C., as the date of that event. This obvious con- 
flict between the Egyptian age, which he finds substan- 
tiated, and the three disagreeing post-diluvian ages pro- 
fessedly derived from inspired authority, Lepsius endeav- 
ors to search out and explain, in his own spirit of min- 
gled " reverence and freedom.'' And of his effort to this 
end he thus speaks, (" Chronology of the Egyptians :" 
Dedication.) 

"The section of my volume which endeavors to establish 
the relation of the Egyptian to the old Hebrew chronology 
will meet with most opposition. Considering the intimate 
connection that necessarily subsists between the philological 
and dogmatical methods of examining the sacred records, 

23* 



210 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

it is perfectly natural that whenever a step in advance, or 
an error, strives to obtain a place on the philological side, 
theological interest, so much more universally distributed, 
takes a part either for or against it. Whoever would dis- 
pute its right to do this, must deny to theology in general 
its character as a science. The Christianity which derives 
its origin and its sustenance from the Bible is essentially 
and intrinsically wholly independent of all learned con- 
firmation. Still, it is the duty of theology, whose task it 
is to fathom Christianity in a rational manner, and prove 
its results, to decide scientifically what are the essential 
points in the Holy Scriptures on which it founds its system 
of Christian belief. Should its true supports not be recog- 
nized, but imaginary ones placed in their stead, it will not 
injure Christianity, but the theological system, or that por- 
tion of it which was built on unstable ground. That truth 
which is discerned by the seund progress of any science 
whatever cannot be hostile to Christian truth, but must 
promote it ; for all truths, from the very beginning, have 
formed a compact league against everything that is false 
and erroneous. Theology, however, possesses no other 
means than every other science to distinguish scientifically, 
in any department, between truth and error, namely, only a 
reasonable and circumspect criticism. Whatever is brought 
forward, according to this method, can only be corrected 
or entirely refuted by a still better and more circumspect 
criticism. It seems to me also that the practical, religious 
meaning which the Old Testament possesses for every Chris- 
tian reader is very independent of the dates of periods, 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 211 

the exact knowledge of which could only have been im- 
parted by means of a purposeless inspiration to the authors 
and elaborators of those writings, many of whom lived sev- 
eral centuries later." 

Noting, then, the conflict between the 430 years of 
Exodus, xii. 40, as the time of Israel's sojourn in Egypt, 
(the TO interpolate, "and Canaan,") and the 430 of Gal- 
atians, iii. 17, as the interval between the Abrahamic Cove- 
nant and the Law, and the discrepancy, already mentioned, 
between the 450 years of Acts, xiii. 20, and the 480 of 1 
Kings, vi. 1, and the disagreement again of these with the 
sum of the individual numbers in Judges, and observing 
that the 430 is just double the period (215) from Abraham 
to Jacob, and the 480 equivalent to 12 generations of 
40 years each, Lepsius supposes that there may be in 
these instances "a play of numbers involving some higher 
providential meaning," or that "this external garb of 
numbers is to be regarded as unessential for the religious." 

"On the other hand," he adds, "I have clung to the 
Levitical registers of generations as a far more certain 
guide ; and thus, in place of a chronological fabric which 
had been already long considered untenable, I immediately 
obtained a true historical foundation, and a chronology 
bordering, at least, on a perfectly reliable one, as far back 
as Abraham, and this not only coincided with all the other 
historical relations in the writings of the Old Testament, 
but also with the already established Manethonic-Egyptian 
computation of time. . . . And this is no slight satisfaction 



2? 2 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

to me, as affording one more guarantee of the genuineness 
of the Egyptian chronology." 

. . . " I do not believe that a sound critical examina- 
tion can consider so many and such universal agreements 
and confirmations to be accidental, or the result of an 
artificial correction . . . We therefore believe, that by a 
new path, namely, the Manethonic chronology, we have 
found the key to the relative portions of time in the Old 
Testament so far as these are connected with Egypt ; and 
in an inverse manner we may now consider the agreement 
that subsists between the chronology of the Hebrew his- 
tory — both the true chronology, represented in the geneal- 
ogies, and the false one, which was afterwards erroneously 
adopted — and the Egyptian numbers, to be indeed strongly 
confirmatory of the authenticity of these last, as they ap- 
pear according to our restoration of them." 

" It is very evident that our carrying back the Old Testa- 
ment chronology to its natural relations, as far back as 
Abraham, must be not merely of chronological, but of 
truly historical importance in the highest meaning of the 
term. ... It cannot be denied that the agreement we have 
pointed out between the true chronological thread, as it 
is represented to us by the genealogies, and the Egyptian 
history, as well as the confirmation of so many notices 
respecting Egypt, from the time of Moses and Joseph, 
establishes a far greater historical character for the Hebrew 
accounts, as far back as Abraham, than would have ever 
been allowed them by a strict criticism, had we been obliged 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 2T3 

to ascribe to the old authorities themselves the numbers 
which were inserted at a later age." 

The reader will, no doubt, share with us the gratification 
of finding this accomplished man a witness so unimpeach- 
able at the last for the historical truthfulness of the Mosaic 
books, and not only rendering his rare acquisitions tributary 
to the general support of ancient Scripture, but, whatever 
corrections he feels called on to make in certain conflicting 
numerals, actually deriving from the Hebrew genealogies 
the very best tests of his own monumental restorations. 

Nor is the remark here out of place, how surely all 
thorough research is found in the end to corroborate the 
Bible on the whole. Difficulties may indeed be exhibited 
in a clearer light, and errors made more manifest, which 
have, in some way, during the progress of ages, found 
place in the documentary vehicles of revelation, but the 
reality of the truth itself, and the general accuracy of its 
accompanying narrative, never fail to be in the end more 
and more signally established. Strikingly is this exem- 
plified in the case before us. Lepsius, as a later and more 
advanced explorer of the monuments and their associated 
questions than Biinsen, has not only verified the Scripture 
history up to the time of Solomon, but has satisfactorily 
traced its chronology up to Abraham. He has discovered, 
it is true, that certain numbers, heretofore relied upon as 
pertaining to the inspired history, must have some other 
than a chronological meaning, or must be regarded as in- 
cidental errors, through imperfection in the channels by 
which revelation is transmitted from age to age ; but after 



2T4 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

thus eliminating the error, he finds the narrative not only 
trustworthy, but standard truth. Such researches, free, 
full, and withal reverential, are of incalculable value. They 
interfere sometimes, indeed, with favorite yet erroneous 
ideas, by furnishing means for a truer comprehension of the 
elements of Scripture ; but they never contradict its actual 
utterances. So far otherwise, they always expand and 
harmonize them. Just, then, as the structure of the sacred 
narrative respecting the physical world, though adapted 
not to scientific but to ordinary intelligence, according to 
the common appearances of things, has been ascertained 
fairly and marvelously to admit, and to be, on the whole, 
illustrated and confirmed by the grand discoveries of 
astronomy, geology, etc., a fact of itself well-nigh con- 
clusive respecting the superhuman character of such nar- 
rative, since no other ancient cosmology can, and none other 
merely human could, face modern science without absolute 
and irreconcilable contradictions, even so do the fullest 
results of Egyptian research and the latest developments 
of universal history fall in with, illustrate, and more con- 
vincingly display the general fidelity of even minute 
Scripture history. 

Gladly, however, as we pause to notice another trium- 
phant vindication of the sacred oracles, in the coincidences 
brought to light by Lepsius, we must now proceed with 
our inquiry into the Scripture record of ancient times. 
And to do so satisfactorily we have to look a little into 
the diverse periods assigned by the Hebrew, Samaritan, 
and Septuagint texts, to the pre-Abrahamic Patriarchs, 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 275 

before the births of their eldest sons; periods which con- 
stitute the only Scripture basis for any chronological 
estimate of the era of the deluge, or of the creation of 
man. 

On the questions connected with these, which have for 
two thousand years called forth, on opposite sides, all the 
resources of genius and learning, any dogmatism is im- 
pertinent folly. We can only say that after due care be- 
stowed upon the inquiries of Usher, Jackson, Hales, and 
others, and patient investigation for ourselves, we are satis- 
fied to adopt the Hebrew numbers, as least likely to have been 
systematically changed, though Dr. Seyffarth and others as- 
sign this very reason for preferring the Septuagint. Nor are 
we disturbed, as there is no good reason why we should be, 
by the fact that such variations occur in unessential elements 
of the documents of revelation, as if the credit to which those 
documents are entitled, because of their inspired^ character, 
were thereby impaired. That a very special guardianship 
of Divine Providence has been, is, and ever will be, ex- 
tended over the inspired books, to preserve them from all 
ruinous, or even serious corruption, we have abundant 
reason to believe ; but that such guardianship is conducted 
through human vigilance, we also know, and that as to 
visible modes of preservation and transmission, the sacred 
records have been left subject to some, at least, of the 
vicissitudes incident to human infirmity. No other mode, 
indeed, of conveying a revelation to all parts of the world 
and all generations of men could, so far as we know, be 
adopted, without interfering with the conditions of a mural 



2? 6 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

probation. Such limited contingency, however, on the one 
hand, and such presiding care on the other, are at once 
consistent with the undisturbed relations of human respons- 
ibility, and with the absolute integrity of all that is essen- 
tial in revealed truth. 

This consideration is particularly applicable to the whole 
system of numbers found in the Bible. While they con- 
stitute no essential part of revealed truth, but stand only 
as adjuncts incidentally associated with it, they are, of all 
forms of idea or expression, least likely to remain unvaried 
in frequent quotations and transcriptions. And especially 
was this the case when figures had not come into use, and 
the ordinary alphabetical signs had to be employed as 
numerals. No one can glance at a Hebrew or Greek 
alphabet, without remarking how minute a change would 
substitute one letter for another, and how very liable 
ancient transcribers must have been to omit or introduce 
some dash or point, thereby occasioning an unobserved 
numerical disagreement, which might afterwards have a 
serious aspect. By so simple and obvious a reflection 
much of the perplexity is removed, which otherwise at- 
taches to the diversities between the old texts, and to the 
apparent discrepancies in the same text. 

But this is not all that may be justly said respecting 
such instances of seemingly erroneous numerations as those 
dwelt upon by our critics. And we think it well to add a 
suggestion or two concerning these, before examining the 
period anterior to Abraham. 

The distinct mention of 480 years, 1 Kings, vi. 1, (sup- 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 277 

posing no mistake,) to Solomon's temple, li after the chil- 
dren of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt,' 7 we 
cannot regard with Lepsius as merely intended in some 
symbolical sense. Nor can we see, as Biinsen seems to do, 
though he rather admits the 480 years to be historical, that 
there is any necessary conflict between that period and the 
430 years of St. Paul. (Acts, xiii. 20.) The Apostle evi- 
dently embraces the whole period from Moses to David in 
a general and not exact enumeration, describing it as 
"about the space" of so many years; whereas the be- 
ginning of the time specified 1 Kings, vi. 1, may have been 
reckoned from some date unknown to us, considered as 
marking the establishment of the Israelites in Palestine, 
that being only the completion of their removal from 
Egypt. Again, in regard to the 400 years affliction, 
Genesis, xv. 13 ; the 430 years sojourn in Egypt, Exodus, 
xii. 40; the 400 years evil, Acts, vii. 6; and the 430 
years, from the Abrahamic Covenant to the Law, Gal. iii. 
17, the discrepancies may very well be only apparent. 
The prophecy in Genesis is manifestly only in general 
terms, and it is strictly quoted in Acts : while the state- 
ment in Exodus may, according to the form given it by the 
70, be understood as embracing the whole time from 
Abraham. And as St. Paul's argument in Galatians de- 
pends not at all on any particular number, he may speak 
only hypothetically of some computation then commonly 
received from the Septuagint. Nor are the statements 
respecting that period invalidated by the circumstance, 
remarkable as it is, that the interval between Abraham's 

24 



278 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

arrival in Canaan and Jacob's going down into Egypt is 
found, by adding the several ages which, compose it, to be 
exactly half of the 430 years of Exodus xii. and Gal. iii. 
The coincidence must, no doubt, quicken the eye of criti- 
cism, but the correspondence is not therefore unreal. 

But whatever else may be said of these cases, they do 
certainly seem to render this much clear, that the Scrip- 
tures, as they have reached us, do not furnish a positive 
systematic chronology for the periods between Solomon 
and Moses, and Moses and Abraham, though they do, 
as certainly, afford approximate data the most reliable for 
a general estimate of that entire interval. Central history 
is given, with a margin for adjustment in details. 

And this, there is reason to infer, is still more remark- 
ably the case with the brief scriptural sketch of the pre- 
Abrahamic ages. Circumstances connected with the trans- 
mitted genealogies of those ages, the analogies of other 
genealogical registers given in the Bible, and the general 
Eastern custom in such matters, afford at least room for 
the supposition, that all the individuals who existed in the 
series are not mentioned in the record. If this principle 
of interpretation be admitted, the era of the deluge may 
readily be removed backward to suit the old Egyptian 
chronology, believed by Biinsen and Lepsius to be sub- 
stantiated, or to meet any other fairly established claim of 
history. Indeed, on this supposition the epoch of man's 
creation has no specific determination in the Scriptures. 
If so, our ordinary estimates, "Anno mundi," are not ab- 
solute measures, from the starting-point on the track of 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 219 

time, but merely convenient relative indexes, like high way- 
mile-posts, marked from no known beginning. We may 
count them as we travel, and note how we progress, but 
they tell us not how far back lies the unknown origin of 
the route. 

Respecting the opening for such interpretation, we ob- 
serve that the 70 introduce a Cainan between Arphaxad 
and Sala in Genesis, x. 24, though on what authority we 
do not know, as no mention of him is made in our Hebrew 
copies of Genesis, x., and the 70 do not repeat his name 
in their register, 1 Chronicles, i. 17. Yet St. Luke in- 
cludes him in the family succession from Noah to Abraham, 
recorded in the third chapter of his gospel. This record 
must of course be admitted as of highest authority, under 
the safest view of New Testament inspiration. One name 
was, it must then be admitted, passed over in the Hebrew 
registers of Abraham's ancestors, and in the Septuagint 
lists, except in a single instance. That other names may 
not have been similarly omitted can hardly be made out ; 
for, although the Evangelist found reason to restore this 
individual to his place between Sala and Arphaxad, it by 
no means follows that he must necessarily have been in- 
structed to restore every other name that might have been 
omitted in the original patriarchal family tables. The 
reality of succession, which, apparently, he chiefly intended 
to convey, is the same, whether reckoned from father to 
son, or from grandfather to grandson, or great-grandson. 
This we see exemplified in the line of priests, 1 Kings, iv. 
2, and 1 Chronicles, vi. 8, 9. In the one case "Azariah, 



280 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

the son of Zadock the priest,' 7 is designated; in the other, 
the form of record is, "Zadock begat Ahimaaz, and 
Ahimaaz begat Azariah," making Azariah not strictly the 
son, but the grandson of Zadock. Similar instances occur 
in other places. In fact, as Layard states in his last 
volume, chap, xxvi., "The term 'son of 1 appears to have 
been used throughout the East in those days, (the early 
Nineveh period,) as it still is, to denote connection gen- 
erally." Consecutive names, therefore, are not necessarily 
given in the genealogical tables. Indeed, some singular 
examples of apparent omissions in such tables force them- 
selves upon attention. For example, 1 Chronicles, vi. 1-4, 
gives only six generations from Levi to his descendant 
Phineas ; whereas in chapter vii. of the same book, verses 
23-27, eleven generations are given from Joseph, who was 
contemporary with Levi, to his descendant Joshua, who was 
contemporary with Phineas. 

Gaps, then, may exist in the patriarchial lists — nay, it 
would even seem to be rendered probable by such consid- 
erations, that they do exist. If so, those lists give no full 
view of the series or its time, though they undoubtedly fur- 
nish a general historical succession, as elevation beyond 
elevation may unerringly mark for the traveler his distant 
way, while no glimpse is gotten of interlying valleys. 

There seems, therefore, no conclusive objection to the 
idea suggested by Michaelis and adopted by the sagacious 
Prichard, that generations have been omitted in the earlier 
genealogies. On the contrary, this supposition appears, as 
we have seen, to be sustained by the greater probability. 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 281 

At any rate, it is sufficiently likely, to cast the gravest 
doubt over the customary computation of the Adamic era. 
Scripture itself, therefore, we conclude, does not specify 
the number of centuries that have rolled over mankind. 
Not even the venerable sacred history tells, with voice un- 
mistakable, how far we now are from the dawn of human 
time. No record, then, has handed down all the reckon- 
ing from the first, and it has not pleased Him whose glance 
embraces all time to supply the ancient omissions. Hence 
we know not, we probably never shall know on earth, at 
what age, before our day, this planet received 

. nj^ creature, who, not prone 
And brute as other creatures, but endued 
With sanctity of reason, might (erect 
His stature, and upright with front serene,) 
Govern the rest, self-knowing, . . . 
And worship God supreme, who made him chief 
Of all His works." . . . 

We cannot even find with certainty the date of the later 
day, when 

"The voice that taught the deep his bounds to know, 
'Thus far, oh sea! nor farther shalt thou go, 
Sent forth the floods, commissioned to devour, 
With boundless license and resistless power.'' 

But though we think this conclusion fairly indicated by 
a careful examination of the whole case, and are prepared 
to recognize, as allowable, a considerably more extended 
chronology than that in common use, we do not feel called 
upon to admit that the Egyptian periods are so made out 
as to require or even sanction a departure from the estab- 

24* 



282 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

lished conventional reckoning. Biinsen and Lepsius are 
indeed very confident concerning those periods, and they 
have had opportunities of investigation which we do not 
pretend to have approximated. Yet we have carefully ex- 
amined their researches, as well as those of Rossellini and 
Wilkinson, and we cannot but see reason for still withhold- 
ing a confident assent to their system. Dr. Seyffarth 
gives also, we find, significant reasons for allowing to the 
Egyptian empire only 2781 years B.C. We acknowledge 
that Lepsius makes out a strong case, especially from the 
agreement of his restorations with the extended Levitical 
registers, and that as we accept this as a collateral testi- 
mony in favor of the Bible history, so it bears forcibly in 
favor of his Pharaohnic ages, so far as the parallel goes. 
That, however, is not very far. And for the rest, we can- 
not but have misgivings. The very elaborate arguments 
on the subject imply that the matter is far from being clear. 
And it is obvious that, in the nature of the case, grave 
doubts attach to the authorities on which, in part at least, 
our learned friends rely. Manetho, the so-described Egyp- 
tian priest, who is reported to have written in Greek, under 
one of the Ptolemies, accounts of the ancient annals pre- 
served in hieroglyphics on the monuments of the temples, 
etc., is known only in fragments of his works handed down 
by one or two authors of the succeeding centuries, and 
chiefly conveyed to our time through Syncellus, a Byzan- 
tine monk of about a.d. 800. And these fragments of 
Manetho furnish the general guidance to Egyptologists, in 
their endeavors to construct a connected chain, from the 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 283 

scattered links of information found within a few years on 
the monuments. But, in the first place, if Manetho were 
a genuine Egyptian author, a point seriously mooted by 
Hengstenberg and others, he may not be correctly re- 
ported; indeed, his advocates acknowledge that in some 
cases he is not. In the next place, he may not have accu- 
rately given the ancient records; and Biinsen contends 
that there was a pseudo-Manetho, who perpetrated enor- 
mous fictions. And, in the third place, it is no slight tax 
on belief, that the makers of the monuments were alto- 
gether truthful in their representations. Over and above 
which considerations, is the further doubt unavoidably at- 
taching to the interpretation of records still so imperfectly 
comprehended as the Egyptian. 

It may be, indeed, that the doubts raised by these con- 
siderations would disappear, or greatly diminish, were our 
acquaintance with the facts as full as that of Professor 
Lepsius. But with the light we have, it is impossible for 
us to receive, as established, the very high antiquity claimed 
for the old Egyptian empire. At the same time, we have 
great respect for the researches and conclusions of such 
men as Lepsius, and are very far from being indisposed to 
accept his results when satisfactorily established. Nay, we 
are free to admit that the ancient term thus claimed for the 
Egyptian polity seems to be rendered less improbable by 
the evidence of a like remote past in the old Chinese 
records and calendar. ('See Williams's " Middle Kingdom," 
vol. ii. p. 146.) There is, in our view, no necessary con- 
flict between the remotest chronology that may be made 



2S4 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

out from Egypt, or any other quarter, and the Scriptures, 
as they may be fairly interpreted. 

Time and advancing knowledge will doubtless make 
some things clear that are now obscure on these subjects; 
and such elucidation we are content to await, with full con- 
fidence in the everlasting verities of the blessed Bible, and 
in the wonderful adaptedness of the inspired oracles to 
whatever real discoveries may be made in any department 
of human inquiry. 

But although there be some indefiniteness in the old 
time-records of the sacred books, they undoubtedly furnish 
the only reliable data for approximating the past term of 
our species. They may not supply the means by which we 
can ascend, in regular course, the current of time, and 
measure its entire length, but they place us on an eminence 
whence one, and another, and another extended reach of 
the mighty stream can be distinctly seen, and whence, not- 
withstanding some meanderings which may be hidden from 
view, a satisfactory general estimate may be formed of its 
whole extent. The six thousand in use as the standard 
expression for this measure may be within the fact by a 
good many centuries, and yet it may be wholly unnecessary 
to change the received mode of reckoning based on the 
estimate that the human family is about six thousand years 
old. 

If, however, the inspired history does not specify our 
exact age, it shows the birthday of mankind as an event 
not only very recent, relatively, io the history of our planet, 
but most conspicuous amid the wonders of which it has 



THE AGE OF MANKIND. 285 

been the scene. It takes us to a point not distant from 
our passing day, where we look upon that miracle of crea- 
tion, the first man. It bids us view the vast solitude of 
nature all untenanted by a single creature that can think, 
or speak, or love. The heavens are lit with glory, but 
there is no eye to gaze delighted on their splendor. The 
ocean rolls in power, but there is no ear to measure its ma- 
jestic music. The fields groan with yellow grain and the 
trees with golden fruits, but there is no hand to gather in 
their treasures. The flowers bloom and beautify the world, 
but there is no appreciative sense that catches their fra- 
grance or that rejoices in their loveliness. The inspired 
word then bids us look again : Eden is occupied by know- 
ing, conversing, adoring creatures. The fiat has gone 
forth, "Let us make man in our image ;" the clay has 
taken form and proportion unparalleled on earth; the Lord 
has breathed thereinto the breath of life, and living souls, 
amid priceless privileges, have entered upon their charge 
and destiny. 

As we look upon that miracle, the mighty issues it in- 
volves come crowding on the sight. Sin, sorrow, death, in 
ever-extending course, through all the ages. Forbearance, 
mercy, grace, in long and wondrous exercise. Iniquity at 
length subdued. A Saviour recognized in all lands. The 
Father's kingdom come, and his will done on earth as in 
heaven. Then — the great consummation ! 

In the presence of that ancient miracle, catching glimpses 
of this new creation, faith may well kindle into glowing utter- 
ance : — 



286 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

"Oh scenes surpassing fable and yet true! 
Scenes of accomplished bliss, which who can see, 
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel 
His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?" 

And however far in the future may be the realization of 
this, or however unsustained, in reference to the past, the 
old idea of a Sabbatical age, we may still anticipate the 
day when, if not numerically, yet essentially, the sketch of 
the sweet bard of Olney shall be more than realized : — 

"The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes. 
Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh 
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course 
Over a sinful world ; and what remains 
Of this tempestuous state of human things 
Is merely as the working of a sea 
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest." 



DISCUSSION V. 

THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 

That extensive communities of men have, at various 
periods, disappeared from the regions which they pre- 
viously occupied, and given place to or become merged in 
others of different characteristics, is a fact exhibited in 
nearly every quarter of the globe, and every age of his- 
tory. We have almost seen with our own eyes the waning 
of Indian council-fires, the extinction of once powerful 
aboriginal tribes, and the rise of the mightiest of civilized 
nations, where, but as yesterday, the red man reared his 
rude wigwam and fashioned his simple armor. Our an- 
cestors of the imperial island had, at no very distant age, 
experienced changes which, if less marked, were, on the 
whole, scarcely less significant. The stern, inflexible Celt, 
whom the genius of Caesar and the disciplined energy of 
Rome failed at last to subdue, yielded, in time, to the 
enterprising, dauntless, progressive Teuton ; and the more 
than semi-barbarous Britain of Caractacus and Boadicea, 
became the enlightened England of Alfred, of Wickliffe, 
and of Bacon. 

But change, the reader need scarce be reminded, has not 
always been improvement. On the contrary, in instances 
not a few has civilization gone backward. Revolution has 
resulted in disaster; and darkness has supervened where 

(287) 



288 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR TH V . BIBLE. 

the culture of ages had diffused no despicable light. Thus 
was it when the iron empire of Romulus and Augustus, 
enfeebled by long corrosions of vice, crumbled beneath the 
assaults of undisciplined barbarians. And thus was it 
when successive convulsions overwhelmed Babylon and 
Thebes, Jerusalem and Athens, Antioch and Byzantium, 
and resigned their ancient glories to be trampled in the 
dust by the lawless Arab and the sensual Turk. 

To describe these great alternations in society, not only 
truthfully but with vividness, to trace them satisfactorily to 
their causes, and so to exhibit the lessons they teach, as at 
once to convince the judgment and move the heart, is the 
appropriate office of history. And it is as they thus ex- 
emplify the influences which determine man's weal or woe, 
that the records of the past become no less instructive than 
they are fascinating. 

Our historical delineations are, however, very far from 
embracing all the mighty vicissitudes which are otherwise 
evidenced as having been experienced by mankind. The 
Sacred Scriptures themselves, clear, comprehensive, satis- 
factory as they are in regard to certain great leading facts 
pertaining to humanity, deal mainly with but a single, and 
that a comparatively obscure, people. Only in a way frag- 
mentary and incidental, do they touch upon the concerns 
of a few other nations, as they came in contact with the 
race chosen to be the medium of heaven's communications 
with our world. But restricted as are these notices, they 
are all we have throughout a long series of primitive ages. 
Profane history everywhere presents the phenomenon of 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 289 

its own birth when the world's population was already 
venerable with uncounted years. It everywhere found 
tokens of antecedent changes, and monuments of races 
whose career was shrouded in the mists of fable, while 
their origin was lost in the depths of mystery. This phe- 
nomenon, it is true, we can explain. It w^as the natural 
result of a single practical deficiency among the nations, 
during an indefinite period. Their failure to contrive the 
elements of a written language, or to recover them where 
they had been lost. During the period, whatever its ex- 
tent, through which this great want prevailed, occurrences 
could be transmitted only by oral tradition. But, as foot- 
prints on the sand are obliterated by wind or wave, so is 
truth lost that is committed only to tradition; or it is 
thoroughly corrupted by admixture with fictions of every 
kind, as the crystal stream becomes defiled by confluence 
with impure, turbid waters. Thus to explain, however, 
the mystery which envelops the pre-historical ages and 
non-historical races is not by any means to supply their 
lost annals, nor find the links which connect them with 
the known system of human development. And yet some- 
thing of this kind may be done. There are means by 
which thoughtful research may restore, and has restored, 
more than a little of lost history. There are appliances 
through which the resolute spirit of truth-seeking inquiry 
may, as it were, summon back to reliable utterance many a 
mouldered generation, and gather from lips long silent the 
story of their times. These means are the monuments 
which buried races of men have left behind them, in almost 

25 



290 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

every quarter of the globe. These appliances are extensive 
critical examinations of those monuments, after the sure 
method of inductive science. It is to a brief investigation 
of this kind that attention is now invited. 

The importance of the subject appears from one or two 
plain considerations. In the first place, these monumental 
relics of ancient races have been appealed to by the ad- 
versaries of revelation as furnishing evidence in conflict 
with the teachings of our holy books. But more ample 
examination is here, as in other departments of inquiry, 
showing that the sum total of testimony is greatly in favor 
of the disclosures originally presented in the Bible. This 
evidence it is certainly desirable to have presented in some 
clear and condensed form. And in the next place, the at- 
tentive contemplation of such memorials of the past is, 
on many accounts, calculated to promote the high pur- 
poses of rational culture. It enlarges the sphere of thought 
and sympathy. It carries the mind back into ages where 
it cannot but experience the double influence of the strange 
and the ancient. It quickens interest in the common des- 
tiny of the great brotherhood of mankind. And it stirs 
generous emotions by placing the spectator in the very 
midst of the struggles, the sufferings, and the achievements 
of his long-forgotten brethren. It was under the expe- 
rience of emotions of this kind, excited by the view of an 
old ruin in the British Islands, that Dr. Johnson recorded 
that utterance of wisdom, which is as strikingly beautiful 
as it is emphatically just: " Whatever withdraws us from 
the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 291 

distant, or the future, predominate over the present, ad- 
vances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me 
and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may con- 
duct us unmoved over any ground which has been dignified 
by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be 
envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the 
plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of Iona." 

Assured, then, that the theme is worthy of attention, we 
proceed to its development. 

Our plan is simple. We shall first survey, with as rapid 
a glance as may consist with profit, specimens of the 
monuments which decayed races have left in different parts 
of the world ; endeavoring so to group them, that a bird's- 
eye view may be gotten of their characteristics and rela- 
tions. We shall then suggest the inferences they seem 
clearly to warrant, and urge the conclusions they fairly 
establish. 

We begin with relics in our own country. These are, 
undoubtedly, as we shall see, memorials of races akin, in 
general character, to the red men who occupied the con- 
tinent, at the time of its discovery, from Cape Horn to the 
Arctic Circle. In glancing at these monuments, it is 
proper to notice the prejudice which certain writers in- 
terested in discrediting the great .principle of human 
brotherhood, have endeavored to attach to the red race. 
They have been represented as creatures so low in the 
scale of rational endowment, as to be entitled to the 
epithet " cinnamon-colored vermin," etc. This is, assur- 



292 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

edly, an unainiable misrepresentation. The Indian is, in- 
deed, under every variety, confessedly an example of the de- 
grading effects of ignorance and want, and of the fixed- 
ness, also, with which hereditary traits are stamped upon 
communities, by influences habitually operating through 
long ages. But he is very far from being the cipher or the 
wretch, relationship with whom should be indignantly 
scorned. He has often exhibited qualities of both mind 
and character immensely above the average European 
standard. De Witt Clinton, in his discourse before the 
New York Historical Society, in 1811, did not overstate 
the case, when he said of the Iroquois: "No part of 
America contains a people which display the energies 
of the human character in a more conspicuous manner, 
whether in light or shade, in the exhibition of great vir- 
tues or talents, or of great defects." The remark might 
certainly be extended to other tribes. Who is not familiar 
with the high endowments of the celebrated Pocahontas — 
her feminine tenderness — her devoted fidelity? Who is 
surprised that distinguished families claim it as an honor 
that they inherit the blood of this Indian heroine ? Who 
imagines that the proudest pedigree of the world has 
anything to boast over the descendants of this noble char- 
acter ? 

The American aboriginal monuments are of various 
kinds, and appear in every extensive region of the conti- 
nent. They may be regarded as radiating from Mexico 
and Central America, to the lowest point of the Old Em- 
pire of the Incas, on the south ; and on the north, through- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 293 

out the whole extent of what is now the magnificent domain 
of the United States. 

Rather more than a hundred years ago, a party of 
Spanish travelers, crossing the Mexican province of Chi- 
apas, unexpectedly discovered, in an extensive forest, the 
ruins of immense stone buildings, which covered an area 
of many miles. The place had been previously unheard 
of. Its name, with its people, had disappeared. From an 
Indian village, however, not far distant, a name was bor- 
rowed; and the forgotten ruins have since been known as 
the City of Palenque. 

The extent and magnificence of these remains conclu- 
sively prove that here must have stood, in some ancient 
time, a great city — the capital of a people, numerous, 
powerful, and possessing more than a few appliances of 
art. When the busy hum of life filled these halls; at 
what date their dispossessed occupants, fleeing from ruth- 
less invaders, looked for the last time upon the homes of 
their fathers, or, awaiting attack, perished around their 
hearths and altars, no record remains to tell. The old 
stones themselves must be interrogated for the story. 

It seems clear that the people who left behind them these 
traces preceded the Aztecs, or Mexicans of Cortes' time. 
This is evidenced not only by the vast accumulation of 
earthy mould at the base of the ruins, and by the pro- 
digious forest growth among them, but by the fact that 
when the great Spanish conqueror passed within a few 
leagues of this spot, nearly three and a half centuries ago, 
he heard not a whisper of any such city, as then astir with 

25* 



29-4 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

an active population. It was, no doubt, at that day, as 
now, a heap of mouldering ruins. These ruins, and others 
like them in several parts of Central America, have been 
repeatedly explored ; and the result is a historical restora- 
tion, to some reliable extent, of the lost race which pre- 
ceded that of Montezuma's empire. That it was a kindred 
race, is evident from the characteristic features of the 
buildings. 

The principal structure remaining among the ruins of 
Palenque stood on a great pyramidal mound of nearly 
three hundred feet square, and forty feet high, faced with 
stone. Upon this foundation rose the building, covering 
a space of about two hundred feet square. The walls, of 
massive stone laid in mortar, were carefully adjusted to the 
points of the compass; and the entire front was stuccoed 
and painted. On this stucco were represented human 
figures, some of them colossal, in various and significant 
attitudes, with hieroglyphics near, which, no doubt, origin- 
ally explained their meaning. These figures, in facial 
outline, resemble the Choctaw and Flathead Indians of our 
own country. On the interior walls remain similar repre- 
sentations, of which some are very striking; and gen- 
erally, though disproportioned, they indicate considerable 
conceptive power and mechanical skill in the artist. The 
extensive floor of the building is of cement, as hard as 
that seen in the remains of the best Roman baths and 
cisterns. 

In this region there exist also other monuments of a 
most remarkable character: vast truncated pyramids, faced, 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 295 

generally, with stone; huge sculptured, monolithic altars; 
and obelisks, also of a single block, from five to seven feet 
on the side, and twelve to thirty high, elaborately carved, 
sometimes into colossal human figures, and sometimes orna- 
mented with hieroglyphics and strange devices. Among 
these ornamental carvings, Mr. Stephens was struck by 
representations of the elephant's trunk ; and in one place 
he discovered, near the base of an obelisk idol, a colossal 
stone head of a crocodile. Neither of these creatures, it 
will be remembered, belonged, at the age of the discovery, 
to the American continent. 

Around all these works, that so strangely tell the tale 
of other days and an ancient race, the deepest silence now 
reigns. For generations giant forests have shed over them 
the gloom of a shaded solitude; and, until a recent day, 
man had lost the knowledge of their existence. 

But although the voices which once echoed among them 
be hushed, and the hands which wrought them have long 
since crumbled into dust, there are witnesses yet surviving 
to explain the meaning of these works. The very struc- 
tures looked upon by Cortes and his veterans, in the heart 
of the Mexican capital, were of the same type. The 
pyramidal mound, the stuccoed and painted palace, the 
sculptured idol and altar, and the hieroglyphic tablet, were 
all there. The difference in detail indicates, indeed, another 
hand, and a succeeding age. But the correspondence 
proves kindred ideas and a common descent. 

There is, however, stronger evidence even than this. 
On the way between Yera Cruz and the capital, not far 



296 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

from the modern City of Puebla, the traveler yet sees some 
venerable piles, which mark the spot where stood the mighty 
City of Cholula, the most imposing, perhaps, of the several 
great capitals on the Mexican plateau, which w T ere crowded 
with inhabitants at the time of the Spanish conquest. This 
populous and comparatively refined city, said by Cortes to 
have contained twenty thousand houses w r ithin its walls, 
and as many more in its environs, w r as admitted by the 
Aztecs to be of high antiquity, and to have been founded 
by the race which possessed the land before themselves. 
The inhabitants of this town excelled in such arts as work- 
ing in metals, manufacturing cotton and agave cloths, and 
producing a delicate kind of pottery, said to have rivaled 
in beauty that of Florence. But this capital, so con- 
spicuous for its refinement, and its great antiquity, was 
even more venerable as the centre of the old religion of the 
country. There stood the vast temple dedicated to the 
"God of the air," (the reader who will take the trouble to 
turn to Ephesians, ii. 2, will note a singular significance 
in this designation,) with all its colossal paraphernalia of 
symbolic sculpture and costly ornament — the mightiest 
mass, by far, ever erected by human hands on this con- 
tinent, and scarcely surpassed in dimensions by any other 
work of man upon the globe. Of this structure, the base 
was an enormous truncated pyramid, whose sides faced 
the cardinal points. These sides were much over a thou- 
sand feet in length, and the height of the mound was 
nearly two hundred feet. On the summit rose the w^alls 
of the sumptuous temple, to whose shrine, venerated 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 29T 

throughout the land, pilgrims continually resorted from 
the farthest recesses of the valley. The undying fires 
which here shed a dreadful glare upon hecatombs of human 
victims, in the time of the conquest, and flung their radiance 
far and wide over the devoted region, may light us to the 
reading of those other monuments of the primitive race at 
Palenque, Uxmal, and Copan. And thus read, those 
ruins reveal much that may be relied upon of that ancient 
people. Room, indeed, is scarcely left for doubt, that 
they belonged to the Toltec family, the almost historical 
race, which is known to have preceded the Aztecs, in 
taking possession of the Mexican plateau. An old 
Mexican annalist, relied upon by Prescott, relates, from 
interpretations derived from their monuments, and from 
tradition, that this early race, the Toltecs, had come from 
the north into the pleasant valley before the seventh 
century of our era; that after several centuries they were 
pressed upon by successive warlike tribes, which came, as 
they had done, from the northwest; that under this pressure 
they left many of their ancient homes, and migrated to 
other lands, yielding the country to the occupancy of the 
invaders ; and that the Aztecs, as the last and most power- 
ful of these, succeeded, about the middle of the fifteenth 
century, in establishing that extensive empire which the 
Spaniard*, within the next hundred years, found so re- 
markably consolidated under the sceptre of Montezuma. 

In the southern section of the continent exist memorials 
of the past, not less striking than are those at which we 
have glanced. They are also, in some respects, like them. 



293 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

And the correspondence is sufficient to indicate a common 
element in their origin : yet they so differ as to suggest a 
separation of centuries in their development, even under 
the moulding influence of that dominant family which gave 
character to the great works of the Peruvian empire. The 
traveler, especially in the central portions of the southern 
table-land, still meets with ancient monuments, remains of 
temples, palaces, fortresses, terraced mountains, great mili- 
tary roads, and other public works, which, how unscientific 
soever may be their execution, astonish him by their num- 
ber, the massive character of their materials, and the gran- 
deur of the design. Upon most of these, however, it is 
not necessary for us here to dwell, because the Inca dynasty, 
under whose presiding genius they were mainly contrived, 
and the obedient multitudes by whom they were constructed, 
were yet in possession of the country when Pizarro hurled 
from their lofty seat the children of the sun, and crushed the 
credulous race over whom they ruled. To only one of the 
oldest and most impressive of these relics would we direct 
attention. It is found on the shores of Lake Titicaca, was 
a venerable pile in the time of the conquest, and is thus 
described by M. D'Orbigny, (L'Homme Americain, t. i. p. 
323 :) " These monuments consist of a mound raised nearly 
a hundred feet, surrounded with pillars; of temples from 
six to twelve hundred feet in length, opening? precisely 
toward the east, and adorned with colossal angular col- 
umns; of porticoes of a single stone, covered with reliefs of 
skillful execution, though of rude design, displaying sym- 
bolical representations of the sun, and the condor, his mes- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 299 

senger; of basaltic statues loaded with bas-reliefs, in which 
the design of the carved heads is half Egyptian ; and lastly, 
of the interior of a palace formed of enormous blocks of 
rock completely hewn, whose dimensions are often twenty- 
one feet in length, twelve in breadth, and six in thickness. 
In the temples and palaces the portals are not inclined, as 
among those of the Incas, but perpendicular; and their 
vast dimensions, and the imposing masses of which they 
are composed, surpass in beauty and grandeur all that were 
afterwards built by the sovereigns of Cuzco." 

In connection with vast remains of this kind there are 
two significant facts to be borne in mind, namely, that sun- 
worship had here absorbed nearly all other elements of 
religion, and that the mummied dead were generally buried 
in a sitting posture, whether in rock-hewn sepulchral 
chambers or in galleries beneath vast mounds of earth or 
stone. 

Turning northward from the Mexican valley, we trace 
the monumental history of the old races throughout the 
wide extent of the United States, amid elements again 
changed in character, according to the different features of 
the country, yet still exhibiting significant correspondences 
with those of the centre and south. Evidences of ancient 
culture considerably beyond anything found among the 
forest tribes by the early European settlers present them- 
selves to notice all along the Mississippi valley. Among 
these are very imposing remains of large defensive, indus- 
trial, sacred, and sepulchral works. Of such structures, 
their most competent early observer, Virginia's celebrated 



300 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

commander against the western Indians in revolutionary 
times, General George Rogers Clarke, thus speaks : " These 
works are numerous in every part of the Western country, 
. . . but are larger as you descend toward the Mississippi. 
Many of them would require fifty thousand men for their 
occupancy. Some of them have been fortified towns, others 
encampments entrenched ; but the greater part have been 
common garrison forts, many of them with towers of con- 
siderable height, to defend the walls with arrows and other 
missile weapons. . . . That the people had commerce is evi- 
dent, because the mouth of every river has been fortified. 
. . . That they were a numerous people is also evident, not 
only from their many works, but also from their habitations 
being raised in low lands. . . . Covered ways to water are 
common, and causeways across marshes frequent. The 
Indians," adds General Clarke, "give an account of these 
works. They say they were the work of their forefathers, 
that they were as numerous as the trees in the wilderness, 
that they affronted the Great Spirit, and he made them kill 
one another." 

These statements are much more than sustained by 
recent explorations. Especially do the carefully pre- 
pared descriptions of such ancient works by Mr. Squier 
and others, accompanied by splendid illustrations, in the 
first and some subsequent volumes of the " Smithsonian 
Contributions to Knowledge," exhibit the astonishing sig- 
nificance of structures like these, so long ago noticed. 

"They consist," say these authorities, (vol. i. pp. 3-7, etc.) 
"of constructions of earth or stone, in immense numbers. 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 301 

and often of prodigious dimensions. The lines of embank- 
ment are from five to thirty feet in height, and inclose 
areas of from two to four and even six hundred acres." 

Some industrial remains of these ancient races corre- 
spond with their great military works. In the copper dis- 
trict of the Northwest, they have left traces of mining 
operations on a large scale. (Schoolcraft, i. 96.) Many 
of their excavations, following the course of the veins with 
singular accuracy for long distances, are from ten to fifteen 
feet wide, and from twenty to twenty-five feet deep. In 
the bottom of one of these cuts, covered by fifteen feet of 
accumulated earthy rubbish, in which were growing trees 
of probably five hundred years of age, was found, not long 
since, an enormous mass of pure copper, of about six tons 
weight, with every particle of rock hammered clean from 
it, supported by underlying timbers, and surrounded by 
traces of the use of fire. Near it were picked up several 
implements of copper, showing that those old miners pos- 
sessed the arts of welding and hardening copper — arts now 
unknown. Still, they were ignorant of the use of iron, 
and worked with comparative awkwardness. Either they 
failed at last to break or lift out this immense boulder, or 
the exigencies of war, of pestilence, or of famine, com- 
pelled them to desist from their labors. 

That the numerous population, implied by these works, 
and those before mentioned, must have been maintained; to 
a great extent, by agriculture, would of course be at once 
inferred. But the fact is singularly evidenced by a very 
peculiar kind of industrial remains, in some of the most 

26 



302 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

fertile regions of the West. There are curious appear- 
ances, known as antique garden-beds, {ibid., 54,) or traces 
of ancient field-husbandry, which seem to denote a remote 
period of fixed agriculture. Some of these fields are said 
to embrace hundreds of acres, and the area in which they 
occur covers more than hundreds of square miles. Trees 
of the largest kind are standing amid certain of these old 
trenched grounds, but in general the preservation of their 
remarkable outlines is due to the prairie grass, which forms 
a compact sod over them as firm and lasting as if they 
were impressed in rock. 

In connection with these traces of the ancient popula- 
tion, something also remains of their system of worship 
and modes of sepulture. Of architecture in wood or stone 
they seem to have known, indeed, but little. At least they 
have left no such tombs or temples as those of the old Tol- 
tecs. Still, they did construct, both for worship and for 
burial, large mounds of earth, which are now covered by 
the sod or the forest, and which, if not mutilated by axe 
and spade, may yet stand as long as the old fortress of 
Cuzco or the pyramids of Cholula. 

"These mounds," say the Smithsonian Contributions, 
(vol. i. pp. 5-140,) "are of all dimensions, from those of a 
few feet in height and a few yards in diameter to those 
which, like the celebrated structure at the mouth of Grave 
CrCek, in Virginia, rise to the height of seventy feet, and 
measure at the base one thousand feet in circumference. 
Indeed, the truncated pyramid at Chahokia, Illinois, has 
an altitude of ninety feet, and is at the base upwards of 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 303 

two thousand feet in circumference. ... To say that they 
are innumerable, in the ordinary sense of the term, would 
be no exaggeration. They may be literally numbered by 
thousands and tens of thousands. They prevail from the 
great lakes of the north, through the valley of the Missis- 
sippi, and the seats of semi-civilization in Mexico, Central 
America, and Peru, even to the waters of the La Plata on 
the south. We find them also on the shores of the Pacific 
Ocean, near the mouth of the Columbia River, and on the 
Colorado of California. In form they are simple cones or 
pyramids, frequently truncated, and sometimes terraced. . . 
. . They are the principal depositories of ancient art; they 
cover the bones of the distinguished dead of remote ages ; 
and hide from the profane gaze of invading races the altars 
of the ancient people. " The traces of fire always accompa- 
nying these latter reveal a predominant element in the reli- 
gion of the tribes that constructed them, while the examined 
tombs exhibit tokens scarcely less suggestive. "Burial by 
fire," (vol. i. p. 161,) " seems to have been frequently prac- 
ticed by the mound builders; urn burial also appears to 
have prevailed; . . . and, as elsewhere, in the bottom of 
the great Grave Creek Mound, ten skeletons were discov- 
ered, all in a sitting posture." 

Fire burial was, we know, common among the Mexicans. 
Clavigero states, (vol. ii. p. 108,) that "many ordered their 
ashes to be buried near some temple or altar." While in 
cases of inhumation the sitting posture was generally 
adopted. 

Practices very similar to these have notoriously prevailed 



304 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

among the North American Indians, from the earliest date 
of European acquaintance with them. Among some tribes, 
however, other customs respecting the dead exist well-nigh 
as remarkable ; for instance, the gathering of such remains 
as have been exposed on scaffolds and in the forks of trees, 
and depositing them, with various ceremonies, in the huts 
of relatives, etc., (Smithsonian Contributions, vol. i. p. 
1*72;) the provisions, etc., deposited with the inhumed, and 
the periodical offering of libations and viands at the graves 
of ancestors, "a duty," says Dr. Schoolcraft, (i. 38,) " ob- 
ligatory on every Indian in good standing with his tribe." 
That the precursors of the modern red men had, more- 
over, methods of recording events, not indeed in alphabeti- 
cal or even hieroglyphical writing, but by means of rude 
symbolical pictures, is certain. The fact that all the more 
intelligent Indians now existing use such pictography, 
would place this beyond dispute. But it is exhibited in 
various specimens, which successive explorers have brought 
to light. The best known of these will suffice as an illus- 
tration. On a rock near the mouth of the Taunton River, 
which flows between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, 
there is a very old inscription, part of which seems to be 
of this symbolic Indian character, while another part is 
Scandinavian. The inscription having been copied by 
Schoolcraft, (i. pp. 114-118,) and referred to the scholars 
of Copenhagen, one of them, Mr. Magnusen, read from it 
a brief record of the landing and defeat of a body of North* 
men at this point in 1001. From portions of it, however, 
a venerable Indian of high intelligence, and well versed in 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 305 

the pictographic systems of his race, rendered for the 
archaeologist a consistent statement of some other events ; 
the two interpretations not interfering the one with the 
other. 

The monuments of old races in Central, Southern, and 
Northern America, at which we have thus glanced, seem un 
mistakably to indicate an original relationship in the ances- 
tral stocks of the several families. The diversities are such 
as naturally to result from extensive geological, climatic, 
and other like influences, while the correspondences cannot, 
without violence to reason, be attributed to chance. The 
grade of civilization, the mound and temple system, the 
fire and sun worship, the tumulus over the dead, and pecu- 
liar processes of sepulture, etc., and the pictorial methods 
of record, belong to them all. 

Besides these there are two other classes of remains re- 
markably agreeing in the whole region — the red man him- 
self, and his system of speech. In all the old representa- 
tions, as now however variant, however affected by soft airs 
and sunny slopes that invite to stationary life, or by the 
vast plains and mighty forests which beckon to hunter- 
wanderings, the Indian is the Indian still ; and whether he 
speak amid the rumbling of southern volcanoes, or among 
the breezes that ripple northern lakes, on the summit 
of the Andes, or the shores of the Chesapeake, one hered- 
itary plan of utterance directs his tongue. The late dis- 
tinguished Mr. Gallatin, who, during many years, devoted 
the energies of his fine intellect to this among other sub- 
jects, says, in perhaps the last public document ever penned 

26* 



306 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

by his hand, (see ante "Human Family," p. 83:) "The 
grammar or structure of the several languages of the abo- 
rigines of America, seems to leave no doubt of the general 
unity of the race." 

Passing now from our western coast to the islands of the 
great Pacific, we look a moment at some of their ancient 
monuments. Like those of our own country, they consist 
of old defensive works, temple mounds, and memorials of 
the dead. 

Of the old fortresses in the Sandwich Islands, "several 
are," says Ellis, (Polynesian Researches, vol. iv. p. 81, etc.) 
"very extensive. That at Maeva in Huahine, near Mouna 
Tabui, is probably the most imposing. It is a square of 
about half a mile on each side, and incloses many acres of 
ground well stocked with bread-fruit, containing several 
springs, and having within its precincts the principal tem- 
ple of their tutelar deity. The walls are of solid stone- 
work, twelve feet in height. On the top of the walls, 
which are even and well paved, and in some places ten or 
twelve feet thick, the warriors kept watch and slept." 

One of the sacred structures is thus described: "It was 
an irregular parallelogram, over seven hundred feet long and 
four hundred broad. The walls were twelve feet high and 
fifteen thick. Holes were still visible in the top of the wall 
where large images had formerly stood. Within this inclo- 
sure were three large heiaus, (temple mounds,) two of which 
were considerably demolished, while the other was nearly 
entire. It was a compact pile of stones laid up in a solid 
mass, one hundred and twenty-six feet by sixty-five, and 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 307 

ten feet high. Many fragments of rock, or pieces of lava ; 
of two or more tons each, were seen in several parts of the 
wall, raised at least six feet from the ground. The erec- 
tion of such a place, under the circumstances, and with the 
means employed, must have been a Herculean task, and 
could not have been completed but by the aid of many 
hands. We could not learn how long it had been stand- 
ing." 

" Their rites of sepulture," adds Mr. Ellis, (vol. iv. p. 262,) 
" corresponded exactly with those practiced by some of the 
tribes on the opposite coast of North America. Sometimes 
piles of stone were erected over the body ; sometimes burn- 
ing was practiced, and parts of the skeleton were deposited 
in temples for adoration, or distributed among relatives, 
who guarded them with religious care; and sometimes 
graves were made, and the bodies deposited, generally in a 
sitting posture, in their houses." 

The Society Islands are marked by remains in most re- 
spects similar. Of the pyramidal temples it is said, (ibid., 
i. p. 262:) "These piles are often immense. That which 
formed one side of the square of the large temple of Ate- 
huru, was two hundred and seventy feet long and ninety- 
four wide at the base, and fifty feet high; being at the 
summit one hundred and eighty long and six wide. The 
outer stones of the pyramid, composed of coral and basalt, 
were laid with great care, and hewn or squared with im- 
mense labor." 

Here prevailed (ibid.) an imperfect process of embalm- 
ing, and here, too, bodies when interred were not laid out, 
but placed in a sitting posture. 



308 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIELE. 

Proceeding onward toward the eastern border of the Old 
World, we find other objects of interest. In the Island of 
Java (Crawford's Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 196,) are 
remains of many ancient temples. " One group, known as 
the ruins of Prambanai, and spoken of by the natives as 'the 
thousand temples/ occupies a rectangular area six hundred 
feet long and five hundred and fifty broad, and consists of 
four rows of small pyramidal structures, inclosing a court, 
in which is placed a large pyramidal edifice. " 

Farther north, the Lew Chew Islands, as recently ex- 
plored by officers of our government, offer one or two 
objects that claim our attention. The present inhabitants, 
like those of Japan, belong mainly, it appears, to the Chi- 
nese variety of the Mongolian stock. And yet the ex- 
plorers met with several remarkable traces of an older race 
connected with Hindostan : neglected rock-tombs like those 
of Syria and Egypt, and emblems most significant of Brah- 
min mythology. (See U. S. Expdn. to Japan, Com. Perry, 
p. 1T3.) They also noticed instances of the peculiar Egyp- 
tian arch, and massive remains in that remarkable style of 
architecture known in Europe as the old Cyclopean. The cus- 
tom of burying the dead in a sitting posture was here also 
observed. "Great reverence, " says the narrative, (p. 319,) 
"is paid to the dead in Lew Chew. They are put in coffins 
in a sitting posture, and are interred in well-built stone 
vaults, or tombs constructed in the sides of the hills." And 
two other circumstances are mentioned, which will be seen 
to connect this singular practice with some of the most 
characteristic features of the Chinese social system. " Peri- 
odical visits are paid by surviving friends and relatives to 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 309 

the burial places, where they deposit offerings upon the 
tombs. And on the burial of the rich dead, articles of 
food are offered, and, after being allowed to remain for a 
short time, are distributed among the poor." 

The religious edifices and pyramidal shrines of the 
Japanese are described by Kcempfer as " sweetly seated" 
in the midst of large square inclosures, approached by 
spacious avenues, and embracing within their walls springs, 
groves, and pleasant walks. "The empire," remarks this 
author, (Kcempfer's Japan, vol. ii. p. 416 ; ) "is full of these 
temples." 

Of this ancient, and in many respects interesting peo- 
ple, the antiquities, customs, and general monumental 
history, including their physical peculiarities and the rela- 
tions of their language, more abundant information than 
has heretofore been accessible will, it may be hoped, soon 
be obtained through the free intercourse towards which an 
opening has been made in their present embassy to the 
United States. As a specimen of what may be thus 
expected, the reader is requested to turn to the interesting 
note of Lieut. J. M. Brooke, II S.N*., which throws more 
than a little light on several questions involved in our 
discussions. 

Entering, however, the Asiatic continent, and looking 
over the crowded Empire of China, we find no memorials 
indeed of "lost races," but numerous tokens of buried gen- 
erations whose social development must have been of high 
antiquity; so that some of the phenomena here properly 
fall within the range of our subject. 

The great defensive wall bounding the empire on its 



310 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

northern frontier presents itself among these as the most 
conspicuous — if not, as has been said, (Williams's " Middle 
Kingdom," vol. i. p. 25,) — "the only artificial structure 
which would arrest attention on a hasty survey of the 
globe." It is indeed a work of herculean labor. A mound 
of from twenty to thirty feet high, with about an equal 
average thickness, over twelve hundred miles long, gen- 
erally faced with masonry or covered with tiles, defended 
by massive towers at suitable intervals, and dating back 
more than two thousand years, certainly testifies," beyond 
mistake, to the vastness of peculation and grade of civili- 
zation here existing centuries before our era. 

The other prodigious national achievement in China, its 
immense canal, is of too recent an age to fall strictly within 
our purview, venerable as are its six hundred years in com- 
parison with the age of similar commercial channels among 
Western nations. Still, it is connected at least in idea 
with the northern rampart, and with the old highways of 
the country; since it is related of the renowned ancient 
emperor who built the wall, (Middle Kingdom, i. 212,) that 
"he made progresses through his dominions with great 
splendor, built public edifices, and opened roads and canals 
to facilitate intercourse and trade between the provinces." 

Few if any remains of large substantial buildings have 
been here, from whatever causes, left by the old races; but 
there are in the aspect of the country features that ex- 
hibit not less surely the peculiarities of ancient custom. 
"A lofty solitary pagoda, an extensive temple shaded by 
trees in the opening of a vale or on a hill-side, etc., are 
some of the peculiar lineaments of Chinese scenery." 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 311 

Ci— 35.) In some places also, relics of the past do appear, 
which seem to link this strange people with other hoary 
nations. For instance, at Nanking, once the most cele- 
brated city of the empire, (i. 82,) " there still exist some 
remarkable monuments, in the form of sepulchral statues. 
These statues are near an ancient cemetery, called the 
■ Tombs of the Kings,' and formed an avenue leading up to 
the sepulchres ; they consisted of gigantic figures like war- 
riors, cased in a kind of armor, standing on either side of 
the road. . . . Situated at some distance from the statues 
are a number of rude colossal figures of horses, elephants, 
and other animals, placed without any distinct arrange- 
ment, whose purpose may have been to ornament particular 
tombs, but which have been scattered by other hands. 
There is a peculiar antique Egyptian cast about them all." 
These remains point to some of tBe most universally 
distinguishing traits of this aged people; the ideas con- 
cerning the dead, which they strangely mingle with a 
prevalent atheism, and the worship they address to their 
ancestors. Sentiments involved in this form of idolatry 
supply, undoubtedly, the actuating principle in the entire 
system of popular superstition. "The doctrines of Con- 
fucius (ii. 258) and the ceremonies of the state religion 
exhibit the speculative intellectual dogmas of the Chinese; 
the tenets of Lautsz, and the sorcery and invocation of his 
followers, may be regarded as the marvelous and subtle 
part of the popular creed ; while the idle, shaven priest of 
Budha impersonates its sensual and scheming features; but 
the heart of the nation reposes more upon the rites offered 
at the family shrine to the two 'living divinities' who pre- 



312 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE B1BEE. 

side in the hall of ancestors, than all the rest. This sort 
of family worship has been popular in other countries, but 
in no part of the world has it reached the consequence it 
has received in Eastern Asia." And great as are the follies 
and vices with which it is associated, this course of senti- 
ment seems to have been connected also, from a very early 
age, with protective if not virtuous influences. Certain at 
least is it. that human corruption, fearful as it is here as 
everywhere, has not developed two of the most fatal forms 
of wickedness witnessed in so many other regions — human 
sacrifices and the actual deification of vice. Nor is the 
fact less than impressive, in view of the promise attached 
to the fifth commandment, that even a pagan people, in 
many respects vile to loathsomeness, yet marked among 
the nations by filial reverence, although in a greatly cor- 
rupted guise, should, beyond all comparison, have had its 
"days long in the land" originally given to its ancestors. 

Certain facts here presented in the processes of sepul- 
ture are remarkable in connection with customs elsewhere 
prevalent, e.g. "On the day of burial (ii. 264-6) a sacri- 
fice of cooked provisions is laid out and the coffin placed 
near it. . . . And at the grave everything he can possibly 
want in the land of shadows is burned for the use of the 
deceased. The sacrifice is then carried back, and the 
family feast on it, or distribute it among the poor." The 
strange sitting posture of the corpse, associated with 
arrangements like these in Lew Chew, and with proceed- 
ings in part akin to them among the aborigines of America, 
if ever here prevalent, has not been perpetuated as a custom. 
And yet it is to some extent employed, particularly in as- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 313 

sociation with certain phases of Budhism. Of the Lamas 
in Thibet it is said (i. 196) that, "as soon as the breath has 
departed, the body is seated in the attitude in which Budha 
is represented, and in this posture of contemplation the 
corpse is burned." 

Two other memorials of the old generations here exist- 
ing we briefly mention, viz., their veuerable annals and the 
uncouth, cumbrous character in which they are recorded. 
That the former reach back reliably to 2852 B.C., seems to 
be conceded (ii. 199 ;) while the latter is probably the oldest 
form of writing now in common use on earth. It is known 
also to have been derived in part, like the old hieroglyphic 
and other systems, from rude primitive attempts at pictorial 
delineation. "Most of the original forms (i. 461) are 
preserved in the treatises of native philologists, where the 
changes they have gradually undergone are shown." 

India, the sunny, irrigated, fertile home of hoary mul- 
titudes, venerable culture, and wild mythology, as of ex- 
uberant nature in her every kingdom, next claims attention. 
The primitive race here, if not "lost" in a material sense, 
has undoubtedly, since the Mussulman conquest, so decayed, 
as to present a phenomenon adapted to our subject. The 
old tombs and temples are those of a people to be seen in 
India no more. Such venerable remains, including innu- 
merable gigantic and gorgeous pagodas, piled upon huge 
pyramids whose sides face the cardinal points, the traveler 
beholds everywhere, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya, 
and from the Ganges to the Indus. Some of the older of 
these monuments are among the most noticeable of all the 

2T 



314 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

works left by early races. One or two of them will suffice 
for our illustration. 

About thirty-five miles south of Madras are extensive 
ruins, known as "the Seven Pagodas/' also bearing the 
name "Mahabalipoor." This name signifies "the city of 
the great Bali/' and the sculptures refer chiefly to the ex- 
ploits of that deified hero, celebrated in the Sanscrit epic 
narratives known as the Mahabarat. " While the structures 
in the west of India are dedicated almost exclusively to 
Seva, the destroyer, this is sacred to Yishnu, the pre- 
server, of whom in the principal temple there appears a 
colossal image, sleeping on an enormous hooded snake." 
(Murray's excellent Sketch of India, in Harper's Family 
Library, vol. ii. p. 225.) "This has been a place of con- 
siderable importance" (says Bishop Heber, Journal, vol. 
ii. p. 213,) "as a metropolis of the ancient kings of the 
race of Pandion ; and its rocks, which in themselves are 
picturesque, are carved into porticoes, temples, bas-reliefs, 
etc., many of which are of great spirit and beauty. The 
ruins cover a great space. . . . Here the surf, according to 
the Hindoos, rolls and roars over the city of the Great 
Bali ! One very old temple of Yishnu certainly stands im- 
mediately on the brink, and amid the dash of the spray; 
and there are really some remains of architecture, among 
which a tall pillar is conspicuous, which rise from amid 
the waves, and give proof that in this particular spot, as 
at Madras, the sea has encroached on the land, though in 
most other parts of the Coromandel coast it seems rather 
receding than advancing. There are also many rocks 
rising through the white breakers, and peculiar desolation 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 315 

marks the surrounding scenery." Standing amid these 
old monuments, we might therefore truthfully apply, in 
part at least, Southey's poetic sketch : — 

" Well might the sad beholder ween from thence 
What works of wonder the devouring wave 
Had swallowed there, when monuments so brave 
Bore record of their old magnificence. 
And on the sandy shore, beside the verge 
Of ocean, here and there a rock-hewn fane 
Resisted in its strength the surf and surge 
That on their deep foundations beat in vain. 
In solitude the ancient temples stood, 
Once resonant with instrument, and song, 
And solemn dance of festive multitudes ; 
Now as the weary ages pass along, 
Hearing no voice, save of the ocean flood, 
Which roars forever on the restless shores ; 
Or visiting their solitary caves, 
The lonely sound of winds that moan around, 
Accordant to the melancholy waves." 

From this desolate spot we proceed to another, in some 
respects much more impressive. 

Penetrating a hundred or two miles into the interior, 
from Bombay, on the northwest coast of the Peninsula, 
toward the ancient City of Deoghir and the modern Dow- 
latabad, we reach the granite mountains in which are 
excavated the wondrous temples of Elora. These we find 
among the most stupendous works ever executed by man. 
A single temple of one hundred feet high, sixty wide, and 
one hundred and fifty deep, cut out of solid granite, is an 
achievement of industry truly astonishing. But when we 
behold similar works crowded together through an extent 



316 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

of two leagues, the mind cannot but pause in amazement, 
to realize the incredible labor. Here, too, are thousands 
of figures of ancient Hindoo sculpture, whose age, like 
that of the structures they adorn, is lost in the darkness 
that preceded the dawn of history. The chief temple still 
bears the name of a more than mortal architect, whom 
Brahma is said to have assisted. Its vault is supported 
by several rows of columns. Numerous colossal monoliths, 
representing Indian gods, stand in conspicuous places; 
and on each side of the colonnades are hewn sphinxes, 
quite in Egyptian style. In view of which, the statement 
may well be credited, as years ago published, that Indian 
soldiers of the English army in Egypt, at the close of the 
last century, exclaimed, while gaziog with astonishment at 
some of the old images of the Nile Valley, that " Hindoos 
must have inhabited Egypt." "The first view," says Mr. 
Erskine, "of this desolate religious city is grand and 
striking, but melancholy. The number and magnificence 
of the subterraneous temples, the extent and loneliness of 
the same, the endless diversity of sculpture in others, the 
variety of curious foliage, of minute tracery, highly-wrought 
pillars, rich mythological designs, sacred shrines, and colos- 
sal statues, astonish and distract the mind. The empire 
whose pride they must have been has passed away, and 
left not a legible memorial behind." 

Sepulture, in this vast peninsula, was, it is well known, 
extensively substituted by the destructive agency of fire. 
The funeral pile is one of the characteristic features of 
Hindoo custom. And vet there are tokens which seem to 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 31 T 

indicate the probable origin, here, of the old idea of a sit- 
ting posture for the dead. Mention has been already made 
of the peculiar attitude in which the Lamas of Thibet were 
placed as soon as they had expired, in correspondence with 
the posture of repose in which Budha is represented. But 
the latter, it appears, is only a secondary exhibiton of older 
representations, with which Budha and his system are be- 
lieved to be connected. In the first volume of Sir William 
Jones's Asiatic Researches may be seen delineated, in char- 
acteristic sketches, the elder forms of Brahma, Vishnu, etc., 
in this very strange position, supposed adapted to contem- 
plation. And it is far from improbable that from these 
representations, and the ideas associated with them, was 
derived the custom, so diffused, as we have §een, of placing 
human bodies in the tomb sitting instead of recumbent. 

Of the old races in India, there are monuments more 
remarkable than all the wonders of the chiseled granite. 
Those venerable documents of theology, of law, and of 
poetry, which oriental scholars within the last century 
brought to light. Significant, indeed, are these, as records 
of ancient thought, as memorials of the early intellectual 
struggles of a heathen race singularly ideal and imagina- 
tive. A people, of whom, as they were in the days of 
Alexander and before, as in some measure they have been 
ever since, it has been strikingly, perhaps justly said : 
" There never was a nation believing so firmly in another 
world, and so little concerned about this ; whose past was 
the problem of creation, whose future the problem of exist- 
ence ; while the present, which ought to be the solution of 

27* 



318 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

both, seeins never to have attracted their attention or called 
forth their energies." 

It is, however, the old language itself which constitutes 
the most instructive memento of the original proprietors 
of that southern clime; a language now proved to be the 
elder sister of Saxon, Gothic, Latin, and even venerable 
Greek ; so that widely separated in essential qualities as 
their tribes have become under diverse influences, in the 
course of ages, Europe and India must be acknowledged 
to have originally received a kindred population ; and the 
inhabitants of these distant regions are justly designated 
under one term, as the great Indo-European family. The 
testimony of the learned Professor Max Miiller, on this 
subject, (an^""Human Family,' 7 ) will be recollected: 
''Many words still live in India and England that have 
witnessed the first separation of the northern and southern 
Arians, (as originally from Aram,) and these are witnesses 
not to be shaken by any cross-examination. The terms for 
God, for house, for father, mother, son, daughter, for dog 
and cow, for heart and tears, for axe and tree, identical 
in all the Indo-European idioms, are like the watchwords 
of soldiers. T >Ye challenge the seeming stranger; and 
wiiether he answer with the lips of a Greek, a German, 
or an Indian, we recognize him as one of ourselves. 
Though the historian may shake his head, though the phy- 
siologist may doubt, and the poet scorn the idea, all must 
yield before the facts furnished by language. There was a 
time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the 
Sclavonians, the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 319 

Hindoos, were living together beneath the same roof, separate 
from the ancestors of the Shemitic and Turanian races." 

From India proceeding to the interior of Asia, we need 
not linger long about the material remains of ancient Per- 
sia. Altogether to overlook this region, source as it was 
of mighty influences in former ages, may not, indeed, be 
allowable, in connection with our subject. Here was the 
centre of that great system of sun and fire worship, which 
seemed to permeate the ancient world. Here were cradled 
energies which, in many a fierce contest, strove for empire 
with Babylon, with Egypt, and with Greece. And here, 
on one spot at least, the site of that gorgeous Persepolis, 
which was a wonder of the world when the Macedonian 
conqueror applied the torch of vengeance, the traveler may 
still behold, in singular perfection of art, and bearing 
many a strange old inscription, spite of all the ravages of 
fire and of time, piles of masonry scarcely rivaled on the 
earth. But to follow even Niebuhr in his explorations of 
these, were needless for our purpose, because we are in the 
main acquainted with the ancient Persians and their neigh- 
bors through the old historical races, and through their 
own sacred books now given to Europe. And we thus 
know them to have been intermediate, no less in character 
than in position, between India and Babylon. 

If from Central Asia we follow the known track of early 
migration toward its farthest limits in Western Europe, 
monuments of other races, which antedate history, present 
themselves again to view. In some places old rock- inscrip- 
tions are discernible, in a rude symbolic pictography, which 



320 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOP, THE BIBLE. 

tends more or less toward some development of a hiero- 
glyphic system, and which, by its peculiar complexity of 
outline, in certain instances, suggests association with the 
originals of the interminably involved Chinese character. 
Altars, too, are found, on which the early wanderers kin- 
dled their sacrificial fires. Conspicuous among these are 
the old Druid temples of Stonehenge in England, and Car- 
nac in Brittany, which, with others that remain, both in 
Britain and Gaul, are supposed, from their significant form, 
to have been dedicated to the united worship of the sun 
and the serpent. 

Nor are the tumuli less remarkable which, in Scythia, 
Germany, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, forgotten 
generations heaped upon their ancient dead. The Scy- 
thians, whose tumuli are scattered in great abundance over 
the plains of B-ussia, Southern Siberia, and Tartary, 
" labored," says Herodotus, "to raise as high a monument 
of earth for their dead as possible," (Melpomene, lxxi.) 
The richness of these Scythian barrows is remarkable; and, 
according to Strahlenberg, (Siberia, p. 366,) the local gov- 
ernors of Siberia used formerly to authorize caravans or ex- 
peditions to visit and ransack the tombs, reserving to them- 
selves a tenth of the treasures. In the second volume of 
the British Archaeologia is an account of the opening of 
one of the larger tumuli in Southern Siberia. Within the 
mound were found three vaults, constructed of unhewn 
stones, and of rude workmanship. The central and largest 
vault contained the remains of the individual over whom 
the tumulus had been erected, also his sword, spear, bow, 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 321 

quiver, arrows, etc. In the vault at his feet were the skel- 
eton and trappings of a horse ; in that at his head was a 
female skeleton, supposed to be that of his wife. The 
male skeleton reclined (something like the sitting posture) 
against the head of the vault, on a sheet of pure gold, ex- 
tending from head to foot ; and another of like dimensions 
was spread over it. It had been wrapped in a rich mantle, 
studded with rubies and emeralds. The female was envel- 
oped in like manner: a golden chain of many links, set 
with rubies, went round her neck, and there were bracelets 
of gold upon her arms. The four sheets of gold weighed 
forty pounds. (Smithn. Cont., ii. art. ix. p. lit.) In the 
Scandinavian monumental history, the earlier and later 
periods have been designated as an "age of fire," and an 
"age of hills." Odin is said to have introduced the prac- 
tice of burning, and also that of the wife sacrificing herself 
with her deceased lord. (Mallet's Northn, Antiq.,chap. xii.) 
The Germans, says Tacitus, added to the funeral pile the 
arms of the deceased and his horse. And Caesar relates 
that the inhabitants of Belgium and Gaul buried or burned 
with the dead whatever was valued by them in their life- 
time. The burial mounds of the ancient Britons evince 
similar practices. They are very numerous, and some of 
them of great size. At New Grange, in the County of 
Meath, Ireland, there is a structure of this kind seventy 
feet high, whose base covers two acres ; and within it, as 
left from old times, there is a gallery sixty feet long, con- 
ducting to a great cavernous chamber, containing originally, 
as do the mounds generally, many interesting relics, ashes 
and urns, spears, shields, and mirrors. 



322 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

But we must hasten to the central monuments of the Old 
World. Races that were more than ancient ere yet Athens 
had received a name, have left along the Italian shores, as 
well as in Greece, imperishable memorials of so vast a char- 
acter as to have given rise to fables of Cyclopean giants. 
If, however, the ruins of Mycenae, and other like cities 
of the olden time, furnished the earliest Greeks of history 
material only for wild conjecture, well may they have 
attributed to demigods such vastly greater achievements as 
the wonderful tunnels of the forgotten race. That which was 
made for the purpose of draining Lake Copais, in Argolis, is 
affirmed (see Niebuhr's Lectures) to have been cut to the 
sea, through the solid rock underlying the pro-Eubean hills, 
a distance of four miles. And similar works, executed 
in Italy, to reduce the swollen Lake of Alba, and some 
others, are of scarcely inferior dimensions or more recent age. 

The Cyclopean buildings, left by these pre-Hellenic and 
ante-Roman races, seem to present a remarkable connecting 
link between the earlier civilization of southeastern Europe 
and that of the Euphrates and Nile valleys. "They have," 
says Niebuhr, "a great resemblance in style to those of 
ancient Egypt, especially to the peculiar colossal nature of 
Egyptian architecture. We, moreover, find in them pointed 
arches instead of vaults, just as in Egyptian buildings. . . . 
The sepultures in what is called the lion-gate at Mycenae, 
which is noticed even by Pausanias, (in Hadrian's time,) 
have quite a foreign character. Notwithstanding all the 
ravages of barbarians, that gate is still standing undis- 
turbed, and its ruins are perhaps now as completely pre- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 323 

served as they were at the time when Pausanias described 
them." 

But if Italy and Greece received thus from Egypt a 
strange influence, at so early a day, to mould their archi- 
tecture, vastly more important toward their own and the 
world's elevation was the influence they received, be it at a 
later day, from Asia, in the gift of letters — a gift without 
which history had remained lost in fable, and religion must 
have continued debased by superstition. 

We linger, then, a moment around the graves of those 
old races that lie silent in the once teeming plains of 
southwestern Asia, before giving attention to the more 
wonderful remnants of antiquity, the most wonderful of 
the world, which lift their hoary heads over the mysterious 
land of the Pharaohs. 

The ancient capital of Assur, and Nimrod, and Ninus, 
on the Tigris, "that exceeding great city of three days' 
journey," to which Jonah was sent with warning message, 
and whose requiem Nahum sung, lost for centuries almost 
from the map of the world, rises before us, as if to life 
again. And from the ruins we hear the story of her great- 
ness and her desolation. The Median, the Greek, the 
Roman, the Persian, the Turk, the Arab, have been there, 
but only to trample Nineveh in the dust. It was Nineveh 
no more : a vast sweep of shapeless mounds, — nothing 
besides. Opening, however, at last before intelligent 
search, those mounds reveal, as at magical touch, the 
realities of the old ages. The huge figures that stood as 
stone sentinels before palace-halls, colossal winged lions and 



324 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

bulls with human heads, come forth as if living creatures 
from their lurking-places. The herald-office of Sargon 
and Sennacherib produces its registers on slabs of alabas- 
ter; and the archives of their state department are read 
from libraries of engraved tile. The race is gone, yet 
restored. We see the Eastern despot, and the abject 
people. He wields authority, unchecked, over property 
and life : they rather adore him as a god than obey him 
as a man. The restoration, in whole and in part, fits 
precisely the delineation found in our old Scriptures. 

Before the monumental piles on the Euphrates, which 
mark the grave of Nebuchadnezzar's later empire, we 
pause only to listen to Mr. Layard's statement: "On all 
sides fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed 
brick, are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched 
soil which, had from the remains of ancient habitations, 
checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of 
Babylon a naked and hideous waste. Owls start from the 
scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the 
furrows.'' We cannot but remember, as this is testified, 
how, when she was in the pride of her power, the prophets 
had written : " Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty 
of the Chaldee's excellency, shall be as when God over- 
threw Sodom and Gomorrah. Wild beasts of the desert 
shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful 
creatures, and owls shall dwell there." 

We now approach that marvelous monumental valley of % 
Northern Africa whose genial climate, fertilizing streams, 
and impregnable natural defenses of inclosing rock and 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES 325 

surrounding desert, rendered it the earliest home of quiet 
labor and progressive art; and whose serene atmosphere, 
embalming, as it were, the works of its inhabitants, from 
the very primitive time, has preserved them for the amazed 
contemplation of every age of mankind. We follow the 
track trodden by old Abraham, when, wending his obedient 
way from Mesopotamia, he sought a Syrian home — the 
path we still pursue, along which traveled himself and 
descendants, across the sands of Southern Palestine, when 
they went to obtain supplies from the granaries of Egypt. 
The venerable city of the priests of On, which rose before 
the patriarch's eyes, as, with his little caravan, he entered 
the wondrous valley, no longer lifts above the desert dust 
its massive battlements. An obelisk is there, the oldest 
of the world, bearing characters in which scholars read 
the epitaph of ages; and innumerable relics lie around its 
base, in the mounds heaped by desert winds. Nothing 
more remains. The minarets of modern Cairo, not far 
distant, glitter in the sun, but not on these does the eye rest. 
Over them, beyond the mighty Nile, against the western 
horizon, the great pyramids of Cheops and Cephrines lift 
their giant forms above the Lybian hills; and on these 
majestic memorials of more, perhaps, than forty, or even 
fifty centuries, the beholder cannot but gaze in mute aston- 
ishment. He sees them as they stood when Joseph and 
Mary, with the infant Saviour, found refuge here from 
Herod ; as the boy Moses saw them from Pharaoh's palace ; 
as Abraham and Sarah viewed them in their early sojourn ; 
and the mind pauses amazed, solemnized. 

28 



326 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Egypt being thus before us, we cast a rapid glance over 
its unique features, and then for a moment contemplate its 
mightiest works. We see the sacred Nile rolling its vast 
flood from the far south toward the middle sea of the 
ancient world. On its borders we behold a narrow level 
strip of alluvial soil, constituting a peculiar valley, not 
exceeding, above or south of the delta, an average breadth 
of four miles. On either side of this valley rise the strange 
verdureless hills, whose undulating outline slopes off into 
the Arabian or Red Sea wilderness on the east, on the 
west into the vast desert of Lybia. These hills, towering 
sometimes into lofty heights of naked rock, here advance 
their sombre forms to the river's edge, as if to lave them 
in the ancient stream ; there, as it were, doing homage to 
the liquid divinity, they recede again with graceful sweep. 
Over their crest full often pours the desert dust, driven by 
winds that seem impatient to bury the old monuments from 
the desecrating hands which have mutilated them for ages. 
This valley is the ever-replenished garden which, during 
the early centuries, furnished food and homes for countless 
millions. Those hills supplied the material for enduring 
structures, and contain the chambers wherein the old 
generations laid their venerated dead. 

Around these sepulchres we see no longer the children 
of those ancient dead. The race, over whom reigned 
Menes and Sesostris, exists no more. Here and there 
appears, indeed, a small community of oppressed and 
inferior creatures, though nominally Christians known as 
Copts, who claim descent from the early possessors of the 
land, and retaiu something of their language; but the 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 327 

Egyptian is in Egypt no longer. More than two thousand 
years have rolled away since he became subject to other 
races; and for more than half that time he has really 
ceased to be known. The Persian hurled his gods from 
their throne. The Greek in part restored them, but only 
as subsidary to his own. He protected the people, it is 
true, and their ancient works, but it was with a spirit 
necessarily foreign. The genius which made Alexandria 
the centre of Greek letters, and gave the Septuagint to 
the world, could not, if it would, have left undisturbed the 
stationary system of the old castes and their avocations. 
But it was when the Roman came that the glory of Egypt 
departed. Of her ancient literature, gathered into that 
great library of the Ptolemies which Livy characterized 
as elegantide regum curaque egregium opus, and which 
contained, it is said, not less than 700,000 volumes, more 
than half was unintentionally destroyed by Julius Caesar. 
(Plutarch.) And the remainder, replenished by the 
splendid Pergamian contribution of Antony, and by 
subsequent additions, was again devastated in the cele- 
brated destruction of the Serapium by Theophilus — the 
Archbishop — under sanction of the Emperor Theodosius, 
a.d. 389, (Gibbon, xxviii.) When the Saracen followed, 
a.d. 638, with a culture scarcely less destructive than his 
own cimeter to all that opposed, the annihilation of this 
invaluable treasury of old learning was completed, (Gibbon, 
li., and Bishop Newton, xii.,) and rapidly failed the ancient 
population. And when the Mameluke succeeded, the work 
of Egypt's ruin was done. In contemplating here, tlure- 



328 . SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

fore, the remains of antiquity, we are literally looking 
upon the monuments of a lost race. 

The famed pyramid of Cheops first demands attention. 
Bearing in mind its gigantic proportions and nice adjust- 
ment, a base of nearly eight hundred feet on the side, ranged 
with the cardinal points, and covering some thirteen acres, 
and a perpendicular height of a little less than five hundred 
feet, we suppose ourselves to visit this in company with 
Lepsius, the most accomplished of explorers, and let him 
describe the scene : "A number of Bedouins gather around 
us, and wait for the moment when we shall ascend the 
pyramid, in order to raise us, with their strong brawny 
arms, up the steps, which are between three and four feet 
high. Scarcely is the signal given, when immediately each 
of us is surrounded by several Bedouins, who drag us up 
the rough, steep path to the summit, as in a whirlwind. A 
few minutes and our flag is unfurled on the summit of the 
oldest and highest of known human works. The panoramic 
view of the landscape spread at our feet now rivets our 
attention. On the one side the Nile valley, intersected by 
long serpentine dams, here and there dotted with villages 
and cultivated fields, over to the Moquottam hills, opposite, 
on whose most northerly point the citadel of Cairo rises 
above the town stretched out at their base. On the other 
side, the Lybian desert, a vast sea of sandy plains, and 
barren, rocky hills, boundless, colorless, noiseless, enlivened 
by no creature, no plants, no trace of the presence of man, 
not even by tombs ; and between these scenes on the right 
and left, the ruined Necropolis, whose general position 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 329 

and simple outline lie spread out clearly and distinctly as on 
a map. What a spectacle ! and what recollections does it 
call forth ! When Abraham came to Egypt for the first 
time, he saw these very pyramids, which had been already 
built several centuries. In the plain before us lay ancient 
Memphis, the residence of the kings, on whose tombs we 
are standing; there dwelt Joseph, and ruled the land under 
one of the wisest and most powerful Pharaohs of the newly 
restored monarchy. Farther away, to the left of the Mo- 
quottam hills, where the fruitful low ground extends on 
the eastern arm of the Nile, beyond Heliopolis, (On,) dis- 
tinguished by its obelisk, begins the blest region of Goshen, 
out of which Moses led his people to the Syrian desert. 
It would not, indeed, be difficult, from our position, to 
recognize that ancient fig-tree on the road to Heliopolis, 
at Matarieh, under whose shade, according to the tradition 
of the country, Mary rested with the Holy Infant. How 
many thousand pilgrims of all nations have since visited 
these wonders of the world, down to ourselves, who, the 
youngest in time, are yet but the predecessors of many 
other thousands who will succeed us, ascend these pyramids, 
and contemplate them with astonishment ? 

The accomplished savan has disappeared, we suppose, 
while we have been gazing on this scene. We therefore 
descend the enormous slope, and find ourselves safely at 
its base. Dr. Lepsius, however, imagine, rejoins us, and 
describes an exploration: "I descended to the elevated 
entrance of the pyramid, and providing myself and attend- 
ants with lights, we entered, like miners, the steeply-sloping 

28* 



330 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBEE. 

shaft, and reached the gallery, and so-called king's cham- 
ber. TTe admired the infinitely fine seams of the enormous 
blocks, and examined the quality of the stones of the pas- 
sages and chambers. In the spacious hall, whose floor, 
walls, and ceilings are entirely built of granite, and there- 
fore return a metalic-sounding echo, we sang a national 
hymn, which sounded so powerfully and solemnly that our 
guides afterwards told the remaining Bedouins that we had 
selected the innermost part of the pyramid to perform 
divine service and utter a loud prayer." 

Let us listen a little longer to one so competent to in- 
struct on these subjects. As we look around upon the 
tombs over which the mighty pile, as it were, keeps watch, 
he tells us: "Almost all of these were built during, or 
shortly after, the erection of the great pyramids. The 
painting within them, on a very fine coating of lime, is 
often beautiful beyond conception, and is sometimes pre- 
served as fresh and as perfect as if it had been done yester- 
day. The representations on the walls chiefly contain 
scenes from the life of the deceased, and appear especially 
intended to place before the eyes of the spectator his 
wealth in cattle, fish, game, boats, domestics, etc. TTe 
thus become familiar with all the details of his private life. 
The numerous inscriptions describe or designate these 
scenes, or they exhibit the often widely-branching family 
of the deceased, and all his titles and offices, so that I 
could almost compose a court and state calendar of King 
Cheops, or Cephren. The most splendid tombs, or rock- 
sepulchres, belonged principally to the princes, their rela- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 331 

tives, or the highest official persons under the kings, beside 
whose pyramids they are laid ; and not unfrequently I have 
found the tombs of father, son, and grandson, even great- 
grandson, so that whole pedigrees of these distinguished 
families, who, above 5000 years ago, formed the nobility of 
the land, are brought to light. The most beautiful of the 
tombs, which, with many others, I myself discovered be- 
neath the sand, that here buries all things, belongs to a 
prince of the family of King Cheops." 

The unhesitating confidence with which our renowned 
instructor thus declares the meaning of these old, and, to 
us, totally unintelligible inscriptions, has of course been 
observed. And we may not be offending, perhaps, against 
the intelligence of our readers, if we presume that, to 
some of them at least, it will not be uninstructive to have 
here presented an outline of the process by which the long- 
lost art of reading the hieroglyphics has been, to a great 
extent, recovered. 

While some French troops, in Egypt, in the year IT 99, 
were engaged upon excavations for the Fort St. Julien, 
near Kosetta, they dug up a mutilated slab of black basalt, 
marked with various characters. This was the since cele- 
brated Rosetta stone. It contained an inscription in three 
forms, one of w r hich was Greek, and proved to be a decree 
in favor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, concluding with these 
words: "This decree shall be engraved on hard stone, in 
sacred, common, and Greek characters." The stone fell 
into the hands of the English, after the French troops in 
Egypt had capitulated, and was deposited in the British 



332 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

Museum. Copies of the inscriptions were, at an early day 
thereafter, distributed to learned men in Europe and Amer- 
ica. And through the combined efforts and suggestions 
of several of these, Champollion at length succeeded in 
detecting the alphabetical nature of the symbols. In 1824 
he published a system of reading them. And this has 
been since so extended by Rossellini, Lepsius, and other 
distinguished men, that the results have become indeed 
surprising. 

In magic boat we now fancy ourselves borne rapidly up 
the mighty Nile to ancient Thebes. Three hundred miles 
are measured, and where stood the renowned city of a 
hundred gates we step ashore. The prospect we again sur- 
vey with borrowed eyes: " Nowhere in all Egypt do such 
rugged hills embrace so beautiful a plain, and nowhere is 
there a spot so well suited for the capital of a great nation. 
The mountains are here, and the river flows between them, 
and Memnon sits calmly on his throne, and looks calmly 
over the river with stony eyes, unused to tears, and nothing 
appears to lament the dead glory. Neither sun nor moon 
shines less brilliantly, less joyously, that kings and princes, 
matrons and virgins, wise and foolish, weak and strong, are 
all alike dead in the past, dead in the valley, dead in the rock- 
hewn sepulchres ; the palaces ruins, the temples ruins, the 
homes gone, the hearth-fires ashes long ago, the hearts of 
the men of Thebes dust, insensible, still, silent dust. You 
can scarce believe it the site of a ruined capital, once the 
wonder of the world for magnificence. There is nothing 
to indicate it, except immediately around Luxor and Kar- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 333 

nak. Solitary on the eastern side stands Karnak ; a ma- 
jestic solitude indeed, among heaps of earth that may 
cover the floors of ancient habitations. Luxor, about two 
miles south, or higher up the river, has only near its own 
vast ruins, and the bereaved obelisk, whose mate was taken 
years ago to Paris. Karnak is a greater wonder than the 
pyramids. The heaping of stone together in such a mass 
was indeed a kingly idea of Cheops ; but here was the 
same royal thought, the same masses of rock, hewn into 
graceful forms and shapes that indicated taste and design, 
and grouped in a temple that surpassed even the pyramids 
in extent. Approaching the great front from the river, we 
have before us the two propylon towers, whose vast size 
and height surpass all others in Egypt. Long before 
reaching the gateway between them, we are passing 
through an avenue of sphinxes, which are in fact rams of 
colossal size, facing the worshiper on each side as he 
approaches the temple. Passing through the pylon, or 
gateway, we enter a court of nearly 300 feet each way, 
with a corridor on each side, and the remains of a double 
row of columns through the centre. On the opposite 
side of this court stand two other lofty and grand pro- 
pylon towers, passing between which we enter the great 
hall of columns. This hall is over 300 feet in breadth by 
nearly 200 in depth. In it there are still standing a hun- 
dred columns, while others lie prostrate. Of these col- 
umns, the central row, including base and capital, are 1)0 
feet high, with a diameter of 12 feet. The others are 60 
feet high and 9 feet in diameter; and for the most part, 



334 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

be it observed, they are of single blocks of stone. On the 
southern side of this great hall it was that Champollion 
discovered the since celebrated cartouche of Sheshonk, or 
Shishak, and the remarkable delineation representing his 
sack of Jerusalem, recorded in 1 Kings, xiv. 25, and 
2 Chronicles, xii. Other courts of like character, save here 
and there a mighty obelisk, lie beyond, and still others, be- 
fore reaching the sanctuary in which the gods sat of old to 
receive homage and sacrifice; and beyond it, the build- 
ings stretch even farther to the east than this prolonged 
approach on the west. All these vast courts, and areas, 
obelisks, towers, and halls, are or were surrounded by 
columns, sphinxes, and statues, and every column and 
stone is covered with carving, and brilliantly painted. 
Not only was the temple colossal in its proportions, cover- 
ing a space of more than half a square mile, but it was 
gorgeous beyond all description in its furniture and adorn- 
ments." 

Such are specimens of the monuments of this ancient 
race — only specimens ; for the land is full of others, some 
of which are well-nigh more wonderful. And what a story 
do they tell of crowded population, protracted toil, grand 
design, mechanical skill, and developed art ! Yet what, 
also, of strange delusion, misapplied energy, cruel oppres- 
sion, and incredible suffering ! 

Our imperfect survey of the old races is now done. We 
have sought them not indeed in every inhabited region of 
the globe. For so extended an exploration, we have 
neither the adequate information, nor, as yet, the means of 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 335 

obtaining it ; nor, if we had, would oar limits authorize so 
full a discussion. We have, however, viewed the monu- 
mental records of ancient tribes in all the great divisions 
of the earth. We have traced them in our own country ; 
along the great Polynesian Paradise, across the Pacific to 
the Eastern Asiatic islands; through China, India, and 
Persia ; then along the ancient Scythian track to Western 
Europe; drawing inward thence, we have viewed them 
near the centres of early history, in Italy and Greece, As- 
syria and Egypt. It now only remains to gather up the 
results — to derive from these hoary monuments just con- 
clusions. In doing this, with the facts mainly before us, 
we may be very brief. 

The first inference we suggest, as clearly indicated by the 
concurrent testimony of these venerable witnesses, is, that 
they fortify other evidence proving the essential unity of 
the human family. The great principle is, indeed, as we 
have formerly shown, established in many ways. The 
masters of physiology and comparative anatomy have 
traced it in the special laws of animal function. The psy- 
chologist has found it in instinctive sentiment, and in intel- 
lectual, moral, and spiritual faculty. The ethnologist has 
beheld it in the ascertained facts of tribal origin, circum- 
stantial variation, and transmitted peculiarities, among the 
dispersed people of the earth. And the learned philolo- 
gist has proved it from the undeniable sameness of ele- 
ments, grammatical and verbal, which he has discovered in 
all the examined languages of mankind. And the import- 
ant truth we here see engraved on the imperishable tombs 



336 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

of the early races. The correspondent facts are too numer- 
ous and significant to admit of being supposed mere casual 
coincidences. Idea and custom, so singularly concurrent, 
point unmistakably to a common source. The elevated 
mound, often square and adjusted in one direction, often 
symbolically circular, and sometimes, by a compromise be- 
tween these, constructed in the octagonal form, is almost 
everywhere. The sacrificial fire well-nigh universal. The 
mystical worship of nature, especially of the sun, of the 
heavens, and the earth, degenerating into gross forms of 
idolatry, sometimes cruel, sometimes groveling, is all around 
the globe. The same general sentiments toward the dead 
exist in every quarter, and kindred practices regarding 
them. In all we see the same out- working mind, variant, 
indeed, in energy and action, yet still the same, not only in 
general character, but in dominant idea and significant 
peculiarity. Especially does one great aspiration after 
immortality go up from the graves that surround the tem- 
ples of the Toltec and the Druid, from Cuzco, Nanking, 
Elora, Nineveh, and Karnak. 

Nor is the conclusion at all weakened, by whatever 
reasonable allowance may be made for the principle urged 
with anti- Christian purpose by certain writers, Mr. Squier, 
for instance, (see his paper, Smithn. Contribn., vol. ii. art. 
ix. p. 99,) that, to a certain extent, " these resemblances 

are the inevitable results of similar conditions That 

human development must be, if not in precisely the same 
channels, in the same direction, and must pass through the 
same stages. " The statement is no doubt partially true, 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 33? 

but very far otherwise the suggested inference. For just 
in so far as it is true, it carries in itself the admission of a 
common human nature, and that involves, as we have seen, 
{ante/ 1 Human Family," p. 62, etc.) almost demonstratively 
a common origin. In no unscriptural sense, assuredly, can 
the principle account for some of the surprising correspond- 
ences found in the old customs of the world. Certain of 
the more special of these undoubtedly necessitate the con- 
clusion of an identical origin. To two of them we would 
for a moment direct particular attention. 

That remarkable sitting posture of the dead, so general 
among the old American races, and traced back through 
the Pacific islands, not only to the eastern coast of Asia, 
but even in certain forms to Thibet and Siberia, is, beyond 
question, a most significant circumstance. It adds convinc- 
ing proof to the many other evidences of common descent 
in all tribes of the red man, and plainly presents one mark 
of the track along which his ancestors made their way to 
the American shore. Not only so, but it would seem to 
render certain the fact of early association of some kind 
between all the people among whom it in any measure pre- 
vailed. "Who can doubt the existence of an affinity," 
asks Prescott, with great force, "or, at least, intercourse, 
between races that had this strange habit of burying their 
dead ?" 

' The other fact we adduce, is the even more remarkable 
series of correspondences connected with time divisions. 
The week of seven days, affirmed to have prevailed over 
so large a part of the ancient world, is one of the elements 

29 



338 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

in this series. It existed, says Lap'ace, (Systeme du 
Monde,) "in India among the Brahmins, and was in use 
among the Arabs, the Jews, the Assyrians, the Chinese, 
and in all the East." If, as would seem, the celebrated 
savan makes this statement on reliable evidence, it must 
be conceded that it indicates the existence — in a very early 
period, long prior to history — of some great common in- 
fluence among that vast range of people, determining 
custom in regard to the practical perplexities of reckoning 
time. Nor is this consequence affected by difference of 
opinion respecting the origin of so remarkable a cycle of 
days. If philosophers, disinclined to the sacred system of 
the Scriptures, and regardless of the mighty array of evi- 
dences of every kind attesting them, will reject their simple 
and rational account of this primitive week, (see Genesis, 
i. and ii. 1-3,) — an account collaterally confirmed, in the 
most remarkable manner, as we have seen, by the disclo- 
sures of geology— let them cherish the idea of its deriva- 
tion from early subtle astronomical knowledge. It will not 
affect the testified fact of the singular ancient custom, 
though it may exemplify the credulity of unbelief; for 
nothing is more obvious than that opinion can seldom rest 
on a slenderer basis. That the inconspicuous planets, 
Mars and Saturn, and the seldom seen bright little Mer- 
cury, so commonly lost in the sun's light, should have been 
so nicely noticed as to have been associated with the sun 
and moon, the beautiful Yenus and the brilliant Jupiter, 
in an intricate astronomical system, and that such system 
should have been applied to the purpose of designating 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 339 

days in this peculiar cycle — previously to the separation of 
Egyptians, Hindoos, Chinese, etc., or that such system 
could have been, by one of these people, diffused over the 
rest at the age supposed — must be regarded as altogether 
improbable. Nor is the source of this idea worthier of 
credit. It is referred (see Systeme du Monde) to the 
Roman historian, Dion Cassius, who wrote as late as the 
latter part of the second century of our era, and who, there- 
fore, if otherwise of highest character, as notoriously he is 
not, and if not discredited on this very point by the earlier 
testimony of Josephus, as he is, (see Contra Apion, book 
ii. 6-8,) was too far from the origin of this custom to be 
at all trustworthy respecting it. He certainly could not 
have known, and must have mainly speculated, concerning 
such a matter pertaining to from twenty to fifty centuries 
before his time ; and, in all probability, applied backward 
the convenient designations for the days assigned at an 
age long subsequent to the origin of the week. Strange 
that evidence like this can be preferred to that of the 
Bible ! 

The mere circumstance that these commonly and occa- 
sionally visible heavenly bodies together make seven in 
number, adds really nothing to the probability of such 
astronomical introduction of the weekly cycle, because it 
is demonstrable that the number seven sustains relations 
to the constitution of nature and the history of human 
thought incomparably more impressive, in connection with 
the part it performs in the Scriptures, than any such single 
instance of correspondence suggested in opposition to 



340 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

sacrecl statement. The singular prominence given this 
numeral in Holy Writ is familiar to every reader. It 
marks the completing of creation, the recurrence of 
sacred seasons, the fullness of spiritual blessings, and the 
terribleness of divine inflictions. From the first of Gen- 
esis to the last of Revelation, we have "the seventh day,"' 
"the seventh year," "the seven spirits of God," "the seven 
vials," etc. etc. In nature and history it is scarcely less 
prominent. The notes of the musical scale, the seven 
colors of the solar spectrum, the seven neck-vertebras of 
mammalian creatures, the seven decades of human life, etc., 
are instances in the structure of the world. And the old 
sentiments of mankind we find handed down in proverbial 
phrases of universal usage, "the seven wise men,'' "the 
seven wonders," and "the seven senses." These sentiments 
are, however, otherwise testified. Xo number is so pecu- 
liarly used by the ancient bards. Virgil's "bis septem 
Xymphae," "septem collectis navibus," "septem ingentia 
corpora," etc., are familiar; while, from the Greek poets, 
Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria quote passages show- 
ing the prevalent impression of a certain sacredness in 
this number, especially as applied to the last day of the 
week. The Pythagoreans styled it a number worthy of ven- 
eration, (TefiaafLou a&oq, as referred to by Cicero, when he 
says, (Tusculan Questions, i. x. 20,) that Xenocrites, and 
before him Pythagoras, "numerum dixet esse, cujus vis, in 
natura maxima essef" 

In all this there is, certainly, something very remarkable. 
It would seem to be a manifold testimony — human and 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 341 

divine, in history and in nature — to some extraordinary 
significance originally assigned this number. And what 
that meaning but the office of rendering perpetually mem- 
orable the great varieties and the important duties con- 
nected with the Sabbath of the Patriarch and the Jew, 
and the Lord's day of the Christian ? 

Still, if to it all, and vastly more sustaining the incom- 
parable disclosures of the Bible, opposite and most im- 
probable hypotheses be preferred, the fact remains, that 
ancient week of seven days, affirmed to have existed from 
Egypt through Asia to the extremity of China; and it 
undoubtedly indicates some potent common influence of 
old, through that immense compass. 

This, however, is not the only, perhaps not the most 
striking fact of the kind. In some of these regions the 
week seems to have been conveniently and yet singularly 
abbreviated. According to Sir Stamford Raffles, the old 
Hindoos had a peculiar week of five days, that is, every 
fifth day with them was a market day. Among the Chi- 
nese, according to Dr. Morrison, there existed the same 
custom of a fifth-day market. And with the old Mexi- 
cans, singularly enough, there was a like week of five days. 
Every fifth day was also peculiarly their market day. (See 
Antonio de Solis's Conquest of Mexico, quoted by Nor- 
man on Yucatan, p 185.) Moreover, in their chronologi- 
cal records or calendar, the Chinese employ two sets of 
characters or hieroglyphics, designated stems and roots; 
and the old Mexican calendar was also distinguished by a 

2 ( J* 



342 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

double hieroglyphical system. Dr. Schoolcraft, who gives 
these facts, (vol. i. p. 345,) very justly urges them in sup- 
port of our conclusion ; and in connection with them presses 
the further question, founded upon others scarcely less sig- 
nificant, "How is it that the Mexicans had a cycle of 60 
years, or a double cycle of 120 years, exactly corresponding 
with that of the Chinese ?" 

But interesting and important as is the great verity of a 
common parentage for all races, both as related to revela- 
tion and as bearing on the destinies of the world, and cer- 
tain as it is that "the recognition of this bond of humanity 
becomes," in the language of both the great Humboldts, 
" one ef the noblest leading principles in the history of 
mankind," we cannot here elaborate it further, as evidenced 
by the old monuments. The distinct suggestion, the 
strongly testified conclusion, we leave to rest on the basis 
of facts already adduced. 

The next inference w r e deduce from the monumental story 
is the existence of a far higher than rude condition of intel- 
ligence, and adaptation to art, among primitive men. The 
earlier races in general were certainly very far from being 
the savage creatures supposed in anti-scriptural theories. 
This, if the old monuments prove anything, they would 
seem to place beyond dispute. Nor is it a fact of trifling 
import. It tallies most remarkably with revealed teaching. 
It speaks of the original dignity and high endowments of 
human kind, though it declares something, too, of their 
downward tendency and wide-spread degradation. If early 
man were thus, as his oldest obvious works affirm, and as the 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST KACES. 343 

Bible tells, a creature not only of high gifts, but of no 
mean knowledge, bestowed at his birth, the contemplation 
of him there places us in the immediate presence of his 
Almighty Father, giving to the earth a son stamped with 
at least his own intellectual image. Bat as we gaze upon 
the scene of that gift, and look up to the great Source of 
that impress, the intellectual becomes, in our view, blended 
with the moral; and the conviction fastens on the mind, 
that not a sagacity enabling him to fashion matter, and 
subjugate brutes, and battle with physical antagonists, was 
man's prime distinction, but a large capacity for the true, 
the beautiful, and the good — an earnest, deathless longing 
after the Infinite, the Eternal, and the Holy. And when 
this conviction is received, the final purpose of such a 
nature, the great destiny of creatures whose pre-eminence 
is their spiritual essence, beckons thought inward to an- 
other sphere. The solemn, endless future rises up to 
view, with its unmeasured retributions; and religion, spite 
of ail the philosophies, and all the unbeliefs of the world, 
is seen to be of necessity the all-pervading influence among 
men. 

But this deduction from the remains of ancient races 
stands immediately connected with another, no less fur- 
nished by the monuments : the fact of a strange moral 
perversion in every early community — the existence of a 
strictly universal bias toward the false and the bad, in those 
very relations where the true and the right were of inestim- 
able import. What tremendous significancy there is in the 
great grooves for blood (human undoubtedly) cut in tin 4 



341 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

old altar-stones of Central America ! What abominations 
are revealed by the monstrous idols of India ! What 
degradation in the sacred bulls and embalmed reptiles 
found under the shadows of Karnak and the pyramids ! It 
is a phenomenon we see, indeed, every day — the intellect 
working with energy often surprising, and achieving much 
that is serviceable, sometimes what is even great and en- 
during, while the moral being gravitates toward corrup- 
tion, and grovels in the dust. But nowhere is the spec- 
tacle more sadly conspicuous than in the old home of the 
Pharaohs. Besides her wonders in architecture, her early 
literature, and her renown for that wisdom which brought 
the fathers of Grecian thought to her halls for instruction, 
her skill in metallurgic and other like operations has 
stamped Egypt's home name "Chemi" upon the subtlest 
of physical sciences, chemistry ; and yet the people bowed 
down to images of stone, yea, worse, to very brutes, and 
even insects ! 

As we contemplate this, the mind turns instinctively to 
that higher instruction which explains the phenomenon, 
while it furnishes the needed remedy. That better teach- 
ing tells of this lapse from the holy in the olden time, and 
of its progressive mischiefs ; but it points out, too, its 
actual character and its provided cure. Place the tent of 
heavenly-minded old Abraham by the proudest palace ever 
reared of Egyptian granite, and which is really the greater ? 
Which sends out the influences that have shaped, and are 
yet to shape, the destinies of the world? Which is iden- 
tified with the precious truths and holy agencies that train 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 345 

our children, support us in sorrow, arm us for duty and 
death, and make home so sweet a word ? How poor, to 
minds instructed like the patriarch's, to spirits lifted up to 
communion with Him who fills heaven and earth, must 
have appeared, yea, how unutterably sad, those masses of 
stone so laboriously piled by idolatry in the land of Ham ! 
How significant is the almost total silence respecting them 
in the inspired narrative ! 

The debt, then, we owe our Bibles for the readjustments 
they effect in the lost relations of truth and of the human 
faculties, comes up as another obvious lesson from the old 
tombs of the world. Here is the agency that has not only 
severed the chains which bound intelligence to a loathsome 
mass of moral corruption, but has imparted the spirit of 
heaven and the vigor of hope to the great benefactors of 
the species these hundreds of years. This was the power 
which tranquilized Europe, when the barbarian hurricane 
had ingulfed the empire of the Caesars ; and this imparted 
to modern civilization its distinctive character and its 
progressive energy. Influences hence emanating opened 
the eyes of Kepler, trained the genius of Bacon, and 
placed the torch of discovery in the hands of Newton. 
Truth, as taught in these sacred pages, and the spirit they 
inculcate, have given to Britain her chief glory; and the 
same truth, the same spirit, have founded in the old home 
of the red man a mighter than British empire. May our 
people so cling to those vital truths, so cherish that, wise 
and heaven-favored spirit, as to convert into enduring fact 
what was at best but probable conjecture a hundred years 



346 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

ago, when Bishop Berkeley wrote, with a singular intuition 
that more than atones for defective harmony: — 

"Westward the star of empire takes its way, 
The first four acts already past, 
The fifth shall close the drama with the day: 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

But this suggests a final thought, arising also from the 
old monuments : the end that comes to human things. It 
may be that Divine Providence sees best to order change 
for nations as for individuals, even irrespective of their vice 
or virtue. It may be that in its best condition, yet to be 
expected, the great moral atmosphere of the world, like its 
physical, demands the ventilating energy of storm and 
tempest, though in the rush many a valuable structure fall. 
But however this be, one thing is certain : the lost races 
tell it, as history tells it, as the Bible declares, nations, like 
individuals, suffer for their sins. Yice buried Babylon and 
Thebes. Wickedness shivered the sceptre of the Caesars. 
Nor can any people long survive the ravages of moral 
gangrene. Be it ours, then, as we love our country, as we 
feel for mankind, by example, and by every good influence 
we can exert, to battle wisely against every form of wrong, 
to cherish whatsoever is right, and to secure, if so it may 
be, what ten righteous men would have secured for Sodom. 

Even if so, 'however, let us not, writer and readers, for- 
get an end that cannot be averted. Everything tells of a 
change coming, greater far than the rise and fall of nations, 
more solemn than the mouldering of generations. The old 
tombs contain many a bony finger that points to that com- 



THE MONUMENTS OF LOST RACES. 347 

ing consummation. The old temples meant it when in 
their prime; their shattered columns are of it prophetic 
symbols. Of such an issue, deep, mysterious forebodings 
of the human spirit give warning. To it the past convul- 
sions of the globe awaken attention; and its whole cer- 
tainty, with all its mighty import, the Bible authoritatively 
proclaims. Yes, this entire planet shall one clay be the 
funeral pile of all that is consumable in whatsoever has 
had part with humanity, — or it shall be the purified, reno- 
vated scene of a different existence, the enduring memorial 
of all generations of men. Let us see to it that, if so, it 
be not for us, in a terrible sense, the monument of a lost 
race. 



348 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 



NOTE TO PAGE 309. 

The facts stated in the following note were furnished in 
this form at the request of the author, and are here intro- 
duced as corroborating the conclusions we have derived 
from many kindred indications. 

Distinguished as an officer of rare merit, and entitled to 
the gratitude of civilized nations for the benefits, scientific 
and practical, to be derived from his invention of the 
"deep-sea sounding apparatus," Lieutenant Brooke is still 
more remarkable as a man of original thought and active 
interest in the great questions of the age. Having been 
lately in charge of an exploring expedition which involved 
his sojourn for some time in Japan, and subsequently in 
command of their own war-steamer which brought to this 
country the Japanese Embassy, so as to become familiar 
with some leading characters among them, Mr. Brooke is 
perhaps as well qualified to speak concerning this people 
as any man living. 

May 14th, 1860. 
Rev. Dr. Pendleton. 

Bear Sir: — Upon the arrival of the Japanese war-steamer 
Candinmarruh at San Francisco, the Admiral Kini-moo-rah-set- 
to-no-Cami and his officers were invited to visit the plantation 



SCIENCE A WITNESS FOU THE BIBLE. 349 

of Captain Frisbie, son-in-law of General Yallejo. After the 
excursion, the Admiral and his suite partook of a collation at 
Captain Frisbie's residence. At table, I remarked incidentally 
to Captain Frisbie, that the Japanese word for milk was " Tclie- 
che." He replied, "that is singular; 'tis the same in Spanish." 
His brother, Dr. Frisbie, said, "No ; Tche-che is the Indian word 
adopted by the Spanish settlers of California." 

While I was thinking of this coincidence, an Indian boy, 
"Martinez," who had been taken into the family of Captain 
Frisbie when a child, entered the room. Captain Mangiro 
tapped me on the shoulder, and, pointing to Martinez, inquired, 
" Where you get him ?" I replied, he is an Indian boy, a Cali- 
fornia]!. Mangiro, shaking his head incredulously, exclaimed, 
" No, no ! Nippon ! Nippon 1" At the same instant, Captain 
Katslintarro inquired of Captain Frisbie where the boy came 
from, and when the Captain replied, California, he also shook 
his head, and said, " Nippon ! Nippon !" We had not before 
noticed the strong resemblance Martinez bore to the Japanese ; 
but, our attention being called to it by Mangiro, Katslintarro, 
and the other Japanese, some eight or nine, who were present, 
and who all concurred in the opinion expressed by Mangiro and 
Katslintarro, we perceived a strong resemblance. 

Mangiro then said, " I will speak to that boy ; he is a Japan- 
ese." But Captain Frisbie informed him that Martinez could 
not speak the language of his tribe, as he had been taken from 
them when a mere child. "But," said he, "it is probable that 
one of General Yallejo's daughters, now in the house, remem- 
bers some words, and I will introduce Mangiro to her." 

Nothing more was said at the time, although the Japanese 
kept their eyes upon Martinez, who was somewhat annoyed by 
the scrutiny to which he was subjected. Soon after, Mangiro 
came to me, saying, "Captain, what I say is true; these Indians 

30 



350 SCIENCE A WITNESS FOR THE BIBLE. 

come from Japan, I think, long time ago. I have spoken to the 
lady, and I find many words the same. I find more than six 
words the same. I think this people come long time ago in 
junk from Japan ; you know junks very often have typhoons, 
and are blown away from Japan. I told you of Japan sailors I 
met in Sandwich Islands, and I know plenty junks go that way. 
Therefore I think this Indian come first from Japan." 

I had not at the time leisure to investigate this interesting 
subject. It is probable that if a vocabulary of the Martinez 
tribe could be comp-ared with a Japanese vocabulary, an import- 
ant relation would be established. The subject is worthy of in- 
vestigation. I shall write to Captain Frisbie, with reference to 
it. I have in my possession an English and Japanese diction- 
ary, and it only remains to procure a vocabulary of the Mar- 
tinez tribe to enable us to determine whether the Japanese 
were right in their conjectures. 

Mangiro, who is a very intelligent man, was wrecked upon 
an island in the Pacific, was rescued by Captain Whitfield of 
Fairhaven, and spent several years in the United States, where 
he acquired the English language. 

Taking into consideration the fact that westerly winds and cur- 
rents to the eastward prevail between Japan and California, Man- 
giro's supposition, apart from the apparent relation of the lan- 
guages, is quite rational. We know that Japanese junks have 
drifted from the coasts of Japan to the mouth of the Columbia, 
and nearly midway several have been, by our whalemen, found 
dismasted, drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves. 
Yours, truly, 

John M. Brooke, 

Lieut. U. S. Navy. 



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